June 01, 2012 journal, I appreciate the 700 Club reporting on health and pro-life issues but I do not appreciate their promoting the destruction of Iran and other Mideastern nations. I do not appreciate their Wall Street home foreclosure advocacy rushing people out of their homes or their blindness to the sins of the Republican Party at large. I do not appreciate their fund-raising tactics of promising that people will be well-off if they give to their 700 Club which is not true, it's blasphemy. Not even Las Vegas has any one number that slick. While Romney Mormon religion may not be any worse than a Mason philosophy I would never vote for anyone who installed a mandatory health insurance law in Massachusetts to oppress the people. Pat Roberson does not minister to the evil Democratic Party people even though the Republicans have demonstrated that they are just as evil as Democratics. I do appreciate the 700 Club showing Larry Crabb and his book on how to pray which is vitally needed for people to focus their attention. Pray 0to God Almighty for creation and life. Crabb is a professional psychologist Ph.D. and appears to be sincere in his delivery. Christian people and the world need to know how to pray who are led good or bad. The title of Crabbs book includes "The prayer you have never prayed". He is speaking of the prayer of humility and praise. the available for Amazon for one penny + shipping and handling, New hard back for $4. It is going to be bad, and very sad when they start to put people in jail for not having the expensive health insurance on themselves and their family at estimated $1,200 per month. God has and is changing him. The PAPA Prayer is centered on knowing God and building a relationship with Him. The goal is not praise nor thanksgiving, and certainly not petition, for which we evangelicals are famous. Many of our personal and corporate prayer times are often a list of wants and needs as if we are sitting on Santa's lap as a child before Christmas. Sure there are a few sentences praising God and thanking Him, but the majority of time is spent listing off requests. However good and needed these requests may be, Crabb suggests that prayer is not about that at all. It is not about making our life on earth as comfortable as possible, nor praying for everything to go right; it is about us coming to God as we are and relating to Him. Relational Prayer is us communicating in a real way with the God of the universe where we speak and we also listen. Not only that, but we learn to hear, not in a mystical way, but in a practical way. We learn that knowing God has so much more for us as Christians then any blessing here on earth. The blessings on earth are referred to as "second things" -- second to knowing God, which should be our "first thing". How do we keep first things first? In the second part of the book Larry Crabb explains in more detail how to pray the PAPA prayer, which includes Presenting yourself to God; Attending to how you think of God; Purging yourself of anything that blocks your relationship with God; and Approaching God as your "first thing". The first step in the Papa prayer is presenting yourself to God, not in how you think that you should be, but in how you really are, authentically. Crabb suggests that you make a pattern of looking at where you are, to your very core, and telling God just that without holding anything back. You are to find your "red dot" -- the exact point that you are at that very moment. Once you have presented the real you, then you attend to your present picture of God. Many of us grow up picturing God in an inaccurate manner, perhaps as a buddy or a stern father. It is important to unpack how you are thinking of God and then correct it with Scripture. Crabb states: "When we see Jesus as He really is, today, right now, we don't casually pray ... Instead, we're silenced. We dare not speak till spoken to." At this point, we need to clear out anything that is blocking our relationship with our Heavenly Father. We should see how we can be obsessed with ourselves when we should be with God. Then we are free to approach God and allow Him to fill all of our empty places. Throughout his book, Crabb shares examples of how the PAPA prayer might be worded in real life situations and ends the book with a four-day plan to help the reader delve into himself. He also ends with a note to women and one to men to personalize how we each relate to God differently. The final paragraph ends the book the very way Crabb could have also started it: "I offer the PAPA prayer to return the body of Christ, and all its lonely members, to the center of their privileged position, to a close relationship with God. I offer this book to restore prayer to its highest purpose."