The 7-day prayer warrior experience (by Stormie Omartian)

(Amazon UK link)

Looking through free books for the Kindle about three years ago, I came across this. It’s an excerpt from a longer book by Stormie Omartian, an American Christian whom I remember as a popular CCM singer in the 1980s. I had no idea she had become a writer, but in reading about her, I’ve discovered that she’s written several books about prayer which have become bestsellers in the American Christian community.

‘The 7-day prayer warrior experience’ isn’t a title I would naturally have picked up, as I’m not keen on the military reference, and have heard and read so many talks or articles about the ‘armour of Christ’ (Ephesians 6:10-17) over the years that I wasn’t sure there was anything new to discover. But I was intrigued nonetheless, and as it was free - and short - I downloaded it.

Each section of the book focuses on one part of the ‘armour’ described in the passage in Ephesians. The author gives a brief historical background explaining how physical armour worked in Roman times, and why soldiers would have worn breastplates, helmets, and so on. I thought these parts quite interesting.

The rest of each section explains why these pieces of armour are analogous to ways we need to ‘gird’ ourselves daily, to resist temptation and other attacks, and to be more confident in our Christian life, day to day. The language used is rather formal, and the content fairly standard; I read a section each day for a week, and there were some encouraging reminders, but nothing I hadn’t read or heard before.

The book wasn’t really about being a ‘prayer warrior’ at all, but about being a ‘warrior’ in everyday life, warning of spiritual battle and attacks, in a way that could have made me feel quite nervous had this been new to me. This isn’t a book for those who are not believers, or indeed those who are new to this kind of thing. Perhaps it would be better used as part of a group study. Each section had ‘go deeper’ questions and Scripture references at the end, but I didn’t go into those.

As a free ebook I’d recommend this for anyone interested. But having read it I’m not planning to get hold of anything longer by the author, as the style made it rather heavy-going.

Review copyright 2016 Sue's Book Reviews