WHY DOESN’T PRAYER ALWAYS WORK?

For Trying to Break Bad Habits and Getting Healed

The Answer May be Hidden in Plain Sight

Why does it seem that for some people and some conditions, even prayer doesn’t seem to work?

Have you ever tried to break a bad habit? Tried everything you knew how to do--including prayer--and still no success?

Have you ever been sick and prayed for healing but still the sickness continued? Old wounds keep opening. Old fears keep resurfacing. Good relationships seem to be ever evasive?

Well, the answer may be hidden in plain sight.

So claims Talk Show Expert Guest Mark Buchanan.

During your interview, Buchanan discusses those nasty habits and pervasive illnesses that just seem to linger, never wanting to leave. He shares with your listeners the solution to ending lingering health and other habitual problems and his solution is taken from an often overlooked passage in the bible where St. Peter gives the answer in a teaching on Seven Virtues.  

Mark Buchanan’s new book is an excellent modern day commentary on St. Peter’s ancient wisdom. It’s entitled, “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret of More” (2007 W Publishing Group in conjunction with Thomas Nelson Publishing).

Hidden in Plain Sight grew out of “field testing” Peter’s counsel with the leadership team at New Life Community Baptist Church in British Columbia, where he is pastor. Through deep study and commitment to Peter’s seven virtues, he found the answer to a question he’d been asking himself, “How do I get more of God in my life?” It’s a theme that Buchanan returns to again and again in his work and writing: “the question that haunts and hounds me, binds and looses me, that question that either I can’t let go of or that won’t let go of me: ‘Is there more?’”

A book and word lover who started as a fiction writer, Buchanan enjoyed imagining Peter’s life and character from the perspective of those who knew him He includes three fictional vignettes about Peter’s unnamed wife; Andrew, his brother; and James, his fishing partner. “They are works of imagination, not theology, meant to do no more than to stir up the imagination,” he says. “Which may just be what theology is and does, too.”

WHAT A GUIDE WE HAVE IN PETER

Neglected New Testament Passage on the Pursuit of Virtue Is Key to Holiness

            The pursuit of virtue, prescribed by a little-read book of the New Testament written by the apostle Peter almost two thousand years ago, may be the antidote to twenty-first century ills, says pastor and author Mark Buchanan. In his new book, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret of More (W Publishing Group, $17.99, March 13, 2007), Buchanan offers a course in living with holy vigor, based on the seven virtues recommended by Peter: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love (2 Peter 1:1-9).

            Virtue may seem—as it did to Buchanan, he admits—an outmoded, fusty Victorian ideal. “I still have moments where I think the good life is seeking my own pleasure at my own convenience, so the thought of practicing virtue chafed me,” he writes. He never imagined that it means living life to the full, but that’s what he’s discovering: “a world vast, beautiful and holy—that all along has been hidden in plain sight.”  A world infused with these ancient virtues is the antithesis of a culture of materialism, selfishness and violence.

            The book explores a seldom-cited biblical passage that is “stunning in its utmost simplicity and utter audacity.” Peter, “the fisherman turned pastor....rash, dithering, cocky and cowering,” is often overlooked as a spiritual guide: “We rarely turn to him to learn about how Christ becomes real and present outside his earthly manifestation,” Buchanan says. “Which is bad, because Peter had much to say on this matter.”

            Buchanan explores each virtue in depth, with practical suggestions on how to, as Peter writes, ‘make every effort” to add these things to your life. He shows how they build upon each other, in the sequence in which Peter describes them: “...add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7). Buchanan examines also the foundation of faith these virtues must be built upon, for they are “as vulnerable as a rowboat in white water if not anchored in faith.” Thus empowered, these “seven old things” are everything you need to live the good life, Buchanan says.

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret of More

by Mark Buchanan

W Publishing Group / ISBN: 0-8499-0174-X

$17.99 hardcover

PUB YEAR: 2007

MARK BUCHANAN ON SAINT PETER’S SEVEN VIRTUES:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.....For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he’s nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins (2 Peter 1:2-9 NIV)

Add to your Faith...GOODNESS:

It’s more than a simple exhortation to probity and decency and regular hygiene. It is nothing less than an invitation to experience and imitate the very personhood of God.

Add to your Faith...KNOWLEDGE:

Knowledge provides grace and peace, and is the key to effectiveness and productivity. But what is it I need to know? Simply, him. And that knowledge has four main sources: Scripture. Worship and Prayer. Creation. Community. God is hidden in plain sight in all these things.

Add to your Faith...SELF-CONTROL:

Self-control guards a treasure—God’s great salvation—and it produces a jewel—God-like holiness. Start now to cultivate it, when maybe the most trouble you face in a day is burned toast, a flat tire, a flu-bug, a few more bills than checks. If in this relative moment of calm, when the bulk of your troubles are domestic (not cosmic) trifles (not tragedies), you cultivate the clear-mindedness and self-control to pray, it will serve you well when you need it most.

Add to your Faith...PERSEVERANCE:

The most obvious and most overlooked thing about perseverance is that it only makes sense if you’re heading in the right direction. If you’re not, you’re a fool to persist. If you are, you’re a fool to quit, no matter how hard the journey is. If you have found the one road that leads to life, stay the course.

Add to your Faith...GODLINESS:

The cure for worldliness and the path to godliness is to become more human. It is to live in an awareness of your creatureliness and so your utter dependence on God. The worst thing you can do if you seek to be godly is to deny your creatureliness. You’ll only end up faking it. Godliness is beautiful when it’s authentic, and revolting when it’s pretense.

Add to your Faith...BROTHERLY KINDNESS:

Brotherly Kindness is me caring for you and you for me, face to face and hands on. Unless I am willing to bear with you and you with me—putting up with each other, in all our weirdness and prickliness—then all we have is philanthropy. That’s nice enough, but it’s a sad substitute for Philadelphia. Philadelphia asks, “Who is my brother? and insists, “I am my brother’s keeper.” 

Add to your Faith...LOVE:

Agape is unprovoked love. It chooses to love, not just before there is emotion, but sometimes in spite of other emotions that come naturally. It loves in the face of betrayal, in the face of rejection, in the face of rank badness. It loves even when circumstances trigger instincts of anger or hurt, withdrawal or revenge—agape builds its house, often, in the ruins.

SUGGESTED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR MARK BUCHANAN

Author of “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret of More”

(W Publishing Group in conjunction with Thomas Nelson Publishers)

1. Your book is based on a single passage from a little-read New Testament book by the apostle Peter. Why is this passage, and Peter as a spiritual teacher in general, overlooked?

2. “Virtue” has an old-fashioned ring to it, as you say in the book.  What are some of the challenges of getting a twenty-first century reader to commit to being “virtuous”?

3. Peter lists seven virtues: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. Aren’t these “no-brainers” for people who profess to follow Christ?

4. Why does Peter encourage building the virtues one upon the other in this specific sequence? 

5. You “field-tested” Peter’s recommendations with the team at your church. What was the result?

6. How does the Holy Spirit enliven our efforts to practice these virtues?

7. How does one actually live out these virtues?  For example, how does one “make             every effort,” as Peter says, to add goodness to one’s life?

8. Why is self-control necessary to one’s spiritual life?

9. You say all of these things are available, “flourishing already in your life, right at hand, close enough for you to gather in fistfuls.”  How does God provide this entire inventory?  

10. What kind of life will these virtues lead to?

11. What is the biggest obstacle to godliness?

12. How does one express “brotherly kindness”?

13. What kind of love is the crowning virtue to these seven ideals?

14. What can churches do to help people in their pursuit of virtue?

15. Where may our listeners get a copy of your book?

16. Is there anything I left out that you would like to share?

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