My wife and I had the privilege of visiting the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky this week and being the book-lover that I am, I spent a considerable amount of time in the campus bookstore.

I came out of the store with a book on family worship, a pocket copy of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, and a collection of Puritan prayers entitled The Valley of Vision.

Over the past few months, the Lord has been convicting me over my lack of prayer. Thankfully, though, I have seen much grace and growth in both my prayer and my Bible reading. For that I am thankful.

Something that has especially been a blessing to me lately is reading prayers written down by other saints. In Tim Keller’s book on prayer that I recommended a few weeks ago, he has a section in the back with prayers from John Calvin. I have regularly been reading those each morning and evening.

Because of that, The Valley of Vision has been on my Kindle wish list for a while now, so when I spotted it at Southern’s bookstore I eagerly snatched it up. I’ve only read a few of the prayers so far, but I’m telling you, you need to get this book!

There are 220 pages worth of deep, enriching, vibrant prayers from Puritan saints of old and I encourage you to pick it up and start praying them for yourself! They have already been a source of encouragement and refreshment for me personally. Listen to the beauty of these prayers:

“O Lord, I am lost in the pursuit of this blessedness, and am ready to sink because I fall short of my desire; Help me to hold out a little longer, until the happy hour of my deliverance comes, for I cannot life my soul to thee if thou of thy goodness bring me not nigh.”

— The Valley of Vision

Don’t you wish you heard more prayers like that in church? The Puritans had such a way of making people small and God big. I don't know why, but I feel like Baptists have an aversion to written prayer. Maybe it's just me, but growing up a Baptist I never heard written prayers read in church, nor was I ever encouraged to read written prayers on my own. Maybe it's a Baptist skepticism of liturgy, or something else entirely, but if you've never experienced the joy of praying written prayers, I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Valley of Vision and discover what you have been missing.

If you do so, let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @CalebEakle! And don't forget to hit that subscribe button below, you'll get these posts delivered to your inbox each Thursday! See you next week!