Brass Heavens [Book Review]

Book review of Brass Heavens by Paul Tautges

Unanswered prayer. One of the greatest challenges in the Christian life. We pray and pray and pray. Nothing. Why? If God hears my prayers and can answer my prayers, why doesn’t He do it?

Paul begins with a beautiful chapter on the role of each person of the Trinity in prayer, such an essential and encouraging foundation before taking on the BIG question of why this same God sometimes chooses not to answer our prayers.

He then lists six reasons in six chapters for why God does this:

1. Pet Sins: The Care and Feeding of Rebellion
2. Neglected Duties: When Conflicts and Offenses Go Unresolved
3. Religious Sins: The Trap of Self-Worth
4. Inconsiderate Husbands: A Man’s Failure to Understand and Honor His Wife
5. Stubborn Pride: The Insistence on Going it Alone
6. Testing our Faith: God’s Loving Incentives to Spiritual Growth

I found each of these chapters both convicted me and encouraged me. I’d rather know where I was going wrong, even though painful to admit, because at least then I can identify what I’ve got to put right. Sometimes we tend to think that God’s silence has nothing to do with us – leaving us completely at a loss, passive, fatalistic, and despairing. It’s often not so mysterious and inexplicable, says Paul, as he calls us to put right what’s wrong and enjoy new boldness in prayer.

As four of Paul’s ten children have impaired hearing, some of them having had cochlear implants, we are reading about a father who knows all about hearing difficulties! Paul’s connection with the struggles of everyday life is apparent in the illustrations that pepper the book and will encourage you that this is a man who is writing from the furnace, not the classroom.

Every Christian will need this book at some point in their lives. Read it to revive your prayers, to melt the heavens, and to increase answers.

Brass Heavens by Paul Tautges (118 pages). Buy at Cruciform Press or Amazon.