Book Review: Dynamite Prayer

Information about the book

PIcardo, Rosario and Sue Nilson Kibbey.  Dynamite Prayer: a 28 Day Experiment.  Invite Press. Plano, Texas. 2022. (Cokesbury / Amazon)

Summary

From the back cover:

Dynamite Prayer is a daily prayer guide that will show you how to begin a practice of "breakthrough prayer," a way of raying where we ask God to en new doors and reveal new possibilities, fueled by the Spirit's power.  This 28-day adventure will take you from feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and uninspired to curious and expectant as you surrender you own preferences and ideas and courageously follow the miracles God brings into your life.

Impressions

I hesitated to write a review for this book.  Earlier, I wrote a post about feeling resentment about reading this book. I know that resentment has colored by perceptions of the book itself; it seems to me that a review I write would be impacted by that feeling. And yet, it has become my practice to record thoughts about the books I read, so here we go.  But to give you another view of the book, I will tell you that it has four stars on Goodreads and a total of 13 ratings.

A few reasons why I didn't like it (beyond, but probably influenced, by my resentment):

• The author uses the word dunamis to refer to God's power. My brain stumbled over that substitution every time I read it. In my head, I had to read God's power for the words to make any sense. It disrupted the reading.
• I don't find snippets of verses to be helpful in devotional reading. I'm much more interested in reading a longer passage to know the context that a short verse. Along with that, in one instance, the authors used a particular translation (NKJV) of the Lord's prayer passage that included the phrase "For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever."  This phrase was not found in the earliest versions of Matthew: I felt like this translation was used just to have the word power in the verse - when it really wasn't there.
• Each day included a Prayer-Hold phrase and a Breakthrough Prayer - these were meant to be prayed throughout the day. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but isn't something that is natural (or fruitful) for me personally.

Now some good thoughts:

• The book lends itself well to a month (or so) of readings - each day has a routine set of devotional, prayer, and scripture, and the format could be very useful for someone who will invest the time beyond reading it (which is all I did - see again, the resentment post).
• The book is well written, and I appreciate that.
• I have heard comments from others that the authors are excellent; I think that should color what you decide to read.

Give this a go if the format and purpose sounds like something that would interest you. It is well done for the kind of book it is.

Posts about book

Picardo Dynamite

Eyes of Resentment

Have you ever read a book because you were asked to read it? I don't mean in school - there are lots of books we are asked to read as part of an education. I mean a book that, because of you commitment to a group or team, you have been asked to read as part of the work of team.  Maybe you were asked to read it because the team leader thought having everyone read and discuss the same book would be helpful to the work of the team.

Right now I'm reading a book that I don't like. Each day, I pick it up and read a small chapter - the goal is to read this book in 28 days.  Each day, I start reading, resentful that I have to read this book because of my commitment to the team. Truthfully, I have limited reading time, and I don't want to spend it reading books I haven't chosen. And as I read this book, I am critiquing it - finding what is wrong with it (in my opinion).

It could be - and I think this is at least partially true - that the book just isn't to my taste. I'm not crazy about how it was written and some of its theology. I would not have chosen it.

But I think what is also at least partially true is that I don't like the book because I am determined to not like it.

What is it that we see through the eyes of resentment? What is it that we miss because we just won't see it through our previously formed opinions? What is it that could make a different if we just got out of the way?