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There are a number of methods of prayer.
Some are very structured and some are less structured.
Perhaps one of the most popular ones is to use The Lord’s Prayer as a model or template.
This kind of gets us to thinking about using the Scripture as a method to help us pray.
Roughly such a method would be to read a scripture devotionally and then pray according or with that scripture.
Donald Whitney’s book “Praying the Bible” provides a method that follows such a method…
His approach is to:
First take a scripture and then read it…seek to understand what it is being said.
Then pray using the words of that Scripture to help lead you…
Now read another scripture.
And pray that scripture…
And so on…
Whitney’s book is a short one and I would suggest you get it…
Difficulties in Prayer
The book begins by recognizing one of the biggest problems that many of us have when we pray…
We have a hard time praying for any period of time…
And we have a hard time not falling into repeating ourselves.
Then when we say the same words over and over our prayer life becomes boring…
Whitney beleives that we should have some training in prayer…
And this training will help us to break out of this “same ole..same ole” prayer life…
This is in contrast with other approaches that would speak against having a model and instead “just pray”…
Whitney disagrees.
I see where Whitney is coming from and do think that following a method can be helpful it shocking some freshness into our prayer life.
Perhaps maybe a little of this…a little of what you are doing now…a little of other methods. Altogether these probably could hep you.
But I digress…
Back to the book.
Praying the Bible comes in to provide a way…not the only way…but a way to break through this stale and stagnant prayer life…
How is your prayer life preacher?
What if you used the Scriptures as a model?
What We Pray About
Whitney notes that most of our prayers are about one of 6 things…
1) Family
2) Future
3) Finances
4) Work/school
5) Church
6) A Current Crisis
This is your life…and if you pray about your life..
And the reality that our life doesn’t change all that often…
What we pray about doesn’t change often…
So it is easy to fall into the trap of using the same words cause you are praying about the same things…
Pray about the same old things with the same old words…
So you don’t feel like praying…
So what do you do?
Example of the Method
Pray through a passage of scripture…
Whitney suggests that you use the Book of Psalms as a starting point.
Ok…back to the method…
Read Bible first…
Let’s assume Psalm 23…
Read first verse…
“The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.”
Now pray…
You may end up with something like…
“Lord I thank you that you are my shepherd…you have shepherded me though a rough patch this week. At work I needed help and you showed yourself as you guided me.”
Perhaps you will be thinking about family and say something like…
“Lord, Sister Betty really needs to be shepherded. We have helped her, but her mobiity is quickly going down. I don’t know whawt to do, but you konw Lord.”
Maybe someone who has left the church.
“Lord Joe really needs to feel your shepherding. Please touch him in ways that noly you can.”
What about when you don’t feel like God has showed up for you and you mad about it.
“Lord you said you would be a shepherd, why are you not shepherding me right now? I have tried to do what you have said. I have tried to rest in you. I have waited for you to show up and you haevn’t showed up. Lord…”
You basically use the words of scripture as your model as you pray to God about it.
Then go to the next line…
“Lord I thank you that I am not in want…I thank you for giving me all that you have given to me…Please provide what you will…”
Or maybe you want to ask God about why you are in want. Or if you are in want. Or how you are in want?
See what I’m saying?
Then go to the next line.
Read the text…and talk to God about what comes to mind as you pray it…
A Few Notes
Note, this is slightly different than using the text to pray itself as some methods teach.
Also, this is not interpreting the Bible or Biblical hermeneutics. It is a devotional reading of the text.
In addition, if you don’t understand a scripture or don’t know how to pray it…skip it…
If sinful thoughts come into your mind…pray about them or simply move on……
If an unrelated thought comes to mind…pray about that…Or pray about why these thoughts came to mind…or simply skip the scripture.
Now what about the Imprecatory Psalms… – you know the ones that speak of dire consequences and enjoyment of pain and hurt to enemies.
Keep on praying it…but don’t pray with people in mind. Place sins in there. Sins of people, your sin/…and perhaps against national sins.
This is a good book on prayer…
If you haven’t had any or much training on prayer it could be a start.
And even if you have, it should provide another weapon to add to your arsenal of prayer.
Go head and pick the book up and start Praying the Bible.
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