
Praying the Truth: Deepening Your Friendship with God Through Honest Prayer
By William A. Barry, S.J.
Loyola Press, 2012
"O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
Your eyes saw all my actions,
they were all of them written in your book;
Every one of my days was decreed
before one of them came into being." (Psalm 139:1,4,16)
These verses from Psalm 139 - considered by some to be among the most beautiful and incisive psalms in the entire Psalter - remind us of the powerful truth that God knows us inside and out, totally and completely. He who dwells in eternity has known every thought we will ever think, every word we will ever speak, and every deed we will ever do before we think, say or do any of them. In short, God knows everything about us - our strengths and our weaknesses, our virtues and our vices. Even at our lowest and most sinful moments, we can take heart in knowing that God saw us at our worst, and still chose to love us and bring us into being. Aware of this knowledge, how can we be anything but honest when we draw near to God in prayer? After all, there is no point in trying to conceal anything from the God who, in the words of Psalm 139, has thoroughly searched us and known us.
Such is the reasoning behind Praying the Truth: Deepening Your Friendship with God through Honest Prayer. In this book, written by noted Jesuit author and spiritual director Fr. William Barry, readers are encouraged to develop a relationship with God in which we hold nothing back and in which we strive to be completely transparent with the Lord who already knows us through and through. Barry contends that just as "we grow in friendship with another human being by becoming more and more transparent with each other" (p.2), so we have to be completely truthful and transparent with God in order to grow in authentic friendship with him. In return, we must allow God to be completely truthful with us, to open ourselves to genuinely receiving what God has to say to us about himself and ourselves.
After three introductory chapters in which Fr. Barry addresses the notion of prayer as relationship and friendship and in which he articulates the idea that keeping secrets is poisonous to any genuine relationship, the author goes on to offer insights as to how we can be more open with God about particularly difficult areas of our lives, from our sinfulness, anger and pettiness to our sexuality and our fears. He also broaches a topic that many devout folks have particular difficulty dealing with, namely expressing anger and disagreement at God himself. Fr. Barry writes in an engaging and easily accessible style that will appeal to both neophytes in the spiritual life as well as more advanced pray-ers.
Praying the Truth is an excellent resource for deepening one's relationship with God. As we prepare to enter once again into the season of Lent, perhaps this is a particularly appropriate time to pick up this fine little book and to face the challenge of drawing closer to the Lord in a more open, honest, and genuine manner.

