The 7 Most Powerful Prayers That Will Change Your Life Forever, by Adam Houge

In reviewing such a book as this, it is useful to discuss those things that can be praised first before getting to the substantial criticism that this book merits. Most of the chapters begin with a short passage and commentary that describes Christian doctrine as it is understood by the author. The writing is easy to understand, and not complicated in the least. The book lives up to at least part of its title in that it includes seven prayers that seek to present different aspects of the Christian walk, prayers that in some form are made by believers dealing with the stages of Christian life from initial conversion and repentance through prayers about having the abiding strength to live a godly life on a day-to-day basis. There is also no doubt in reading this book that the author is sincere; whatever other faults he is guilty of, insincerity is not one of them (although seeking to profit off of God’s word may be one of them, at least if I had paid anything for this book to begin with).

There are some serious problems with this book, however, and even someone who appreciates its short length (it can be profitably read in 15 to 30 minutes) could find much to concern in the course of its pages. Among the more serious flaws is a flaw in conception—the prayers provided in the book are not taken from the Bible (which includes plenty of prayers worthy of reflection and adaptation) but are rather invented by the author. Even more suspect, the author seeks to write a response to each prayer speaking on behalf of God, an extremely risky proposition to make, made worse by the use of belittling expressions like “baby” that are found in the text, which makes at least some of the imagined responses to prayer from God come off a little bit creepy. Almost as serious are the fact that in consecutive prayers the author basically contradicts himself, although he may be unaware of it. In one of the prayers he states rather grandly that anyone who disagrees with the Bible (presumably, with his incorrect interpretation of scripture) is destined for hellfire, and then in the very next chapter he talks about the need for unity and love and understanding. It seems difficult to receive a loving response from those one has just consigned to hellfire for disagreement, especially considering the author takes it upon himself to tell pastors what they ought to be doing with their own congregations, something few pastors are likely to appreciate.

This book, which is part of a series of prayers, is a textbook example of how not to write a book. The book itself is short, a bit of a tease, and contains greatly uneven contents that lack spiritual depth or biblical accuracy and that are absent a great deal of humility on the part of the author. There are some useful insights to be gained from this book, but they are fairly commonplace insights about mercy and grace that can be found in just about any writing on the subject from a believer. As a book on prayer, this book falls flat, neither encouraging believers in creating their own personal prayers that contain scriptural concepts as a way of having deeply personal conversation with God (without the imagined response in return) nor staying close enough to scripture (the author appears to believe in the validity of his own private interpretations taken from what he assumes to be prompting from the Holy Spirit, a bad assumption to make when one’s beliefs and practices are counter to the totality of scripture) to present a biblical look at prayer. As a result, this book is basically about what Adam Houge thinks about important prayers, and quite frankly, that is not very worthwhile.