In Don’t Stop Praying, Matthew West has written a 40 day devotional type book centering on the topic of prayer. Matthew West is a popular Christian artist with hits such as Don’t Stop Praying, Hello My Name Is, Truth Be Told, The Motions, My Own Little World, Forgiveness, just to name a few. He is also known as reaching out to fans and getting their own stories and making them into a song. He begins the book by sharing a personal story about taking his daughter Lulu on a father-daughter trip. At the camp, they made them to an experiment and she would be blindfolded. Before that happened, Matthew was told to tell her that he would never leave her, she can ask him anything, and that she should only listen to his voice. At first, he was allowed to touch her shoulder and guide her walking around the camp. Next, he had to remove his hand and wasn’t allow to touch her. Next, they rose the challenge by not allowing him to speak unless she asked him a question. She was confused and she didn’t remember why he wasn’t talking. Later on a camp counselor told her that she had been separated from her dad and to follow him. She eventually followed the new leader and off she went. She had completely forgotten the three rules. This idea let him to writing this book on prayer. God will never leave us, we can ask him anything, and we should only listen to his voice. This lead him to seeking more a stronger prayer life and his hope is for readers to join him on this journey.
One of my favorite lessons in the book was about praying for your enemies. This chapter is a difficult one to read and do! Matthew shared how even he struggles with praying for his enemies. He explained how Jesus instructs us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Jesus forgive his enemies while he was bleeding out. Matthew made a point about how we aren’t called to roll our eyes at them, to gossip, or unfollow them. He revealed also how it is nearly impossible to stay upset or bitter towards someone else when we are truly praying for them. We can seek God’s strength and help in praying for our enemies even when it’s difficult to do so. We have all been there and struggled with this in some degree.
Another shocking story was about praying for your kingdom come and how your God’s will be done in our lives. Years ago, Matthew West started seeing a door open for a country music career. The publishing company was offering him a job to become a country music songwriter. He has written a few hit songs for some country artists before become a Christian artist and songwriter. He did sign a contract and one the way home he felt God telling him this wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing. They surprising wasn’t angry with him and they didn’t try to sue him for breaking his contract. Two weeks after turning them down God opened up a spot for him to write songs with Casting Crowns and this changed his entire career.
I would recommend this awesome book to anyone who is seeking a new book about prayer and connecting more with your Creator. I have always enjoyed Matthew West and his songwriting style and this book is no different. He is very knowledgeable on the topic and wants to help readers to pray more effectively and more often. I think his song ideas he gets behind hearing fans stories is inspiring and some of those are included throughout this book. This book will assist readers into don’t stop praying.
Check it out below:
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Stop-Praying-Hears-Breath-ebook/dp/B0FFSHTN58
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