Book by Houston author aims to drive women to prayer

Gari Meacham’s conversations with God during the emotionally wracked junctures of life gave her the faith necessary to hold together her marriage, guide a daughter scarred by sexual assault, and stay grounded during the countless moves required of a family headed by a professional baseball player. But in times of relative calm she realized a believer’s desperate need for God should flow from the reality we are “designed to thirst for God,” not merely because of life’s crises.

In her latest book “Spirit Hunger” (Zondervan 2012), Meacham lays bare her life in intimate detail. Her conversations with God reveal desperation for him. Like the Psalmist, Meacham sought God as one in a dry and thirsty land. But few Christians recognize they are spiritually parched and desperate.

But what if Christians regularly prayed as the desperate people they are, Meacham asked?

The question motivated her to write about her own experiences “to draw people to engage God in a real way.” Her research indicates most believers do not pray with any regularity, only calling upon God when life spirals out of control. But Meacham said the depths of God’s grace can only be experienced in consistent, intentional prayer.

Meacham’s husband served last year as first base coach with the Houston Astros. The baseball life has been a trial; Meacham writes of moving 47 times in 10 years and the toll it took on her marriage and family.

Though applicable to all Christians, Meacham said women can benefit most from her testimony, and it is written with Christian and secular audiences in mind.

The fundamental elements of Meacham’s prayer life rely on the simplicity of Matthew 7:7-8. Asking, seeking, and knocking mark the threshold crossed into God’s presence. Once there, the craving to return is the beginning of what she calls Spirit hunger.

“Knocking is where we grow up in prayer. … In prayer we need to keep knocking until we get an answer, or until we’re released from praying that prayer,” she writes.

With generous Scripture references (often the source of the answers we seek, Meacham said), “Spirit Hunger” encourages the reader to earnestly seek God in the throes of tumult and on the grassy banks of still waters.