Greg Darley, leader of International Justice Mission's College Mobilization team, will release his first book
Wasted Prayer on July 8th via Thomas Nelson. Its message, while seemingly provocative, directs Christians to the heart and true purpose of prayer.
We are to stop praying about the things God has already commanded us to do. . . and just do them.
Prayer is not just a transaction. It's a relationship marked by obedience. Only when we break free from a cycle of religiosity, in which prayer is a reaction to our circumstances, do we enter a fruitful relationship characterized by discipleship. In this relationship, prayer is good. But in the religiosity, prayer is often procrastination. It's an excuse. It's a prison sentence that keeps us locked in "safe" inaction.
The Bible makes it clear, stretching from Abraham to John the Baptist and Peter, that there are times when prayer can actually be sinful. James says that faith without works is dead, and the great heroes of Christianity understood that God had given them clear commands demanding clear action.
Darley explains that the truth is, sometimes when you think you're praying, you're really just procrastinating. And when you think you're asking that God's will be done, you're really telling him no. In times that call for action, prayer can be disobedience in disguise.
Wasted Prayer uncovers the ways we use prayer to dodge responsibility for the work God has assigned us.
With gut-level biblical exposition and a no-pretense challenge, Darley calls Christians to get off their knees and off their butts in order to explore what true obedience looks like.
Wasted Prayer asks readers the hard questions:
What would your life look like if you stopped praying about God's will and just did it instead? How would your church look if it spent as much time serving as it spent praying about serving?
Darley writes, "Following Jesus has always been about action. If there's no action in your life, you aren't following Jesus. It's impossible to be a disciple and stay still. When Jesus called the disciples to follow him, they literally walked behind him. If they had stayed where they were, they wouldn't have become his disciples. Being a disciple, in essence, means acting."
Wasted Prayer is a call to start living like a Christian, instead of just praying like one.
About the Author:
Greg Darley is a social entrepreneur, speaker, and writer. In his role as Director of College Mobilization for International Justice Mission (IJM), he leads IJM's more than seventy-thousand college students on hundreds of campuses across the country to engage in the work of justice.
Before coming to IJM, Greg was founder and director of
BackstageLeadership.org, a national Christian leadership training program connecting and equipping Christian leaders, church planters, and pastors. He is a graduate of Clemson University and has earned a master's degree from Liberty Theological Seminary. He also is a graduate of BreakPoint's Centurion Program, a biblical worldview training program created by Chuck Colson.
He lives outside Washington, DC, with his wife and two children.
