Eden Rae arrived right on time. Of course, I know God's in control, and his timing is always right. But even the doctors got it right this time, as she arrived on her due date. Mommy and baby are doing great, as are daddy and big sisters one and two. A nurse brought Arya and Chloe their own "bracelets" with said monicers. It's been a very good week, if a little different for my schedule. So I may be more brief with this report.

I shifted my reading plan a bit, and finished 21 Days to Childlike Prayer (Jed Coppenger, Harvest House Publishers). In it, the author shares his meditations and applications of the Lord's Prayer. Anyone who wants practical help to improve his or her prayer life (and that would probably be everyone) would benefit by reading it, I'm sure. While Coppenger gives specific strategies and plans with worksheets at the end of each chapter, that doesn't mean he's at all shallow. His content is solid and meaningful. It seems clear that he has spent a great deal of time thinking about the Lord's Prayer and working out implications. Incidentally, I've also started Erwin Lutzer's Covering Your Life in Prayer. It's intended to teach us to pray the Scriptures, and it seems to me to accomplish its goal, by example. The design of the book is to provide a Scripture verse/passage each week for a year (so 52 total). There's a brief meditation/explanation of the passage followed by a sample prayer. You could pray for yourself, obviously; but the idea presented is to learn to intercede for others. The book serves us well in two ways: 1) it reminds us that praying the Scripture is not the same as quoting the Scripture back to God; and 2) it shows that really praying the Scripture is dependent on understanding the Scripture. Both of these are areas in which I've observed confusion as well-intentioned Christians make their first attempts at praying the Bible.

I also finished Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture (David Murray, Crossway). It's an excellent book I had read before; but I thought it may be even more helpful to me the second time and on my sabbatical. It's written for men in general, not just pastors. Murray and his wife have also written a book for ladies on the same subject. It's titled Refresh, and I'm sure it would be a blessing to you, ladies. There's a good chance I'll launch a men's study this fall wherein we'll work through Murray's material, so for now I'll just say I recommend the book. Maybe pick it up and get a jump of the reading, gentlemen.

This week I plan to start NO Is a Beautiful Word (Kevin Harney, Zondervan).

By His Grace & For His Glory,