Summary Of Sacred Rhythms By Ruth Barton

Summary: Ruth Barton’s Sacred Rhythms brings instructions and insight to the Christian prayer life in the fourth chapter. She begins by describing a time that she planted flowers. She states that the flowers were kept in plastic containers and the flowers’ root systems were striving for something more. She draws an analogy to our prayer life with God with the life of the flowers. We are often found craving something more in prayer life. However, after we have been praying and studying God for a time, it can become easy for our prayer lives to become dull. She tells us that prayer is the way in which we “communicate and commune” with God (63). We continue to investigate God as we communicate with him, but eventually prayer life seems to loose its flare. So, were do we go from here, Ruth asks. She answers this question by telling us to go deeper. We have to find ways to become more and more intimate with God. And, growing into deeper intimacy

In the past, I have created the habit to ask “What would Jesus do?” or strike up a conversation with god about a difficulty that I have had in life. I pray in church with others and sometimes myself. But rarely do I set aside specific timeframes for private meditation in God’s presence. I have done this in the past and found it highly rewarding but I have since fallen out of the habit due to College’s busy schedule. Nevertheless, I feel that my life would earn a great deal of balance if I began to really sink down into a private prayer life. There are just too many obvious benefits from a prayer life to deny its effectiveness! I will become more introspective of myself and God and, thus, be more capable of loving others, and, thus, myself. This will surely allow for my time spent on homework to become more efficient due to a decrease in stress and worries and an increase in joy via the Lord. Therefore, I can see no follies. Ruth has me