David Powlison and I have reflected that the two poles or bad tendencies in prayer that have stifled the church are legalism and mysticism. Legalism is more typical of conservative evangelical circles and mysticism is increasingly dominate in the broader evangelical world.

In the book, A Praying Life, I am quietly confronting both dangers. In the first section when I introduce praying life a child, my biggest concern is legalism. That is fairly obvious.

What is less obvious is the second section when I talk about asking, I am dealing with mysticism. What I’ve read of the mystics is that they are very in tune with the dangers of human self-will. But the result can be that they tighten up and make a move similar to Buddhism. In their zeal to annihilate the self, they kill desire and its close cousin of dreaming and finally hope. Most of the major books on prayer written in the last few years by relatively well known authors have mystical tendenies in them. I’m particularly gunning against the “floatyness” of mysticism in the first three chapters of this section (12-14). Without mentioning their names, I quote a number of authors who have mystical tendencies.

I’ve been struck at our prayer seminars in the last few years how difficult “asking” is for people.

Three quick thoughts on mysticism.

1. Mystics tend to get stuck in the darkness. To put it another way, they have the cross without the resurrection. In Part 4, I deal partly with that problem by encouraging all of us to see the story that God is weaving in our lives. The theme of hope that permeates the book comes from incarnate God who answers prayer.

2. Mystics can also get stuck in their depravity and not move out in love. I discipled a brilliant, educated couple once because the wife wanted to “experience Jesus” more. As I got into their lives, I told her that Jesus was at the bottom on the laundry basket. That sounds harsh but it fit her beautifully. Her husband had a full time job and cooked all the meals and did all the cleaning and laundry. She dabbled at some hobbies, but did no real work around the house except critiquing his work. She was particularly concerned about his occasional angry outbursts! She wanted to have a deeper experience of Christ without knowing love. I told her that you’ll start getting to know Jesus better when you start doing the laundry. Jesus was at the bottom of the laundry basket. That is just a simple exposition of John 14:21,23.

3. Mystics can get stuck in darkness and depravity because they search for experience. They are truly modern (in the Oprah sense) in that they’ve idolized feelings about God. You’ll see in the book how much I react to the idea of hunting for God as an experience. In Chapter 2, I stress that if you make prayer the center then it becomes a search for an experience with God, which is idolatry. This theme runs all through the book. For instance, in chapter 23, Praying Without a Story, I gently critique a woman who has made experience with God her goal in life. Experience has left her disappointed…as it always does.