Praying the Scripture is a great way to commune with God. This post is a distilling of Donald Whitney’s great little book titled Praying the Bible which is one of the most concise, practical books I’ve ever read on prayer. To quote Whitney, and put it succinctly:
“To pray the Bible, you simply go through the passage line by line, talking to God about whatever comes to mind as you read a text. See how easy that is? Anyone can do that.”
-Donald Whitney, Praying the Bible
Prayer is essential for the Christian, but it’s not easy. Why is prayer so difficult? Why is prayer even sometimes boring? Why does 5 minutes of prayer feel like an eternity? Is it because we are second-rate Christians? The answer is likely, “no!” So why is it so hard to be consistent in prayer?
1) THE PROBLEM
Our problem in prayer is we say the same old things about the same old things.
Prayer is often boring. When prayer is boring, we don’t feel like praying. And when we don’t feel like praying, it’s hard to concentrate in prayer and to pray for very long.
We often pray about these same things:
Family/Friends
Finances
Future
Work or School
Church or Ministry
Current Crisis
This will not change with “praying Scripture”, we will continue to pray about these same things, but in a fresh and new way.
Prayer can be fresh and new every time we pray.
2) THE SOLUTION
So, what’s the solution? The solution is simple & straightforward. If God expects and calls his people to pray then consistent, meaningful prayer must be doable.
When we pray, pray through a passage of Scripture, especially a Psalm.
When we sit down to pray, we are responsible for creating the words of our prayers. When we use the Scriptures, the words are provided for us, all we have to do is pray!
3) THE METHOD
Let the words of Scripture become the words of our prayers. For example, if we pray through
Psalm 23, you read, “The Lord is my shepherd,” and thank Him for being your shepherd. Ask Him to shepherd your family that day, to guide, protect, and provide for them. Pray that he will make your family members His sheep; that they will look to Him as their shepherd. Ask Him to shepherd you through the decisions you must make about your future. When nothing else comes to mind, go to the next line, “I shall not want” and continue to pray.
Simply go through the passage, line by line, praying what you find in the text or what it brings to mind. If nothing comes to mind or you don’t understand the verse, go to the next one. You may choose to spend a lot of time in a verse or move quickly through the passage. Nothing says you have to pray over every verse.
Keep doing this until you either (1) run out of time or (2) run out of Scripture.
4) USING THE PSALMS OF THE DAY
You can use any passage of Scripture to pray through, but the Psalms are especially great because they’re so full of emotive, prayerful language. The “Psalms of the Day” is a simple method that divides the 150 Psalms into 5 Psalms for each of the 30 days in a month. Take the day of the month as your first Psalm. Then keep adding 30 to that number until you get 5 Psalms. So, on the 15th of the month, the Psalms of the day would be Psalm 15, 45, 75, 105, and 135. On the 31st of the month, use Psalm 119. Take 30 seconds to scan these 5 Psalms of the day, then choose one to pray through.
If you get distracted, just come back to the next verse and continue.
It’s really this easy! Again, you simply go through a passage line by line, talking to God about whatever comes to mind as you read a text. Anyone can do it!