God has inspired a Psalm for every sigh of the soul . . .
The Lord has persistently convicted me about my prayer life for the past few months. Prayer has been brought up in sermons at church, the women’s Bible study has discussed prayer, our church held a prayer meeting and hymn sing, the list goes on. The Lord has made it impossible for me to forget or move on from this issue of prayer. In fact, for the cherry on top, the Lord directed my pastor and his wife to give me a book to read, ponder, and review called Praying the Bible. I tried to hide my shock (though I’m not quite sure I succeeded) when they handed it to me because the work of God in showing His desire for me to pray struck me intensely in that moment.
The work of the Lord is not a vain work. He will fulfill His purpose.
People often ask, beg, even plead to know the will of God. It’s actually rather simple, He often tells us in His word. In fact, He tells us through Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” Were you aware that it is God’s will for His people to pray? Unfortunately many Christians are either unaware of this verse, or simply refuse to commit themselves to prayer. I have fallen into the latter category for many years. I felt sad and burdened by my lack of prayer; however, I have found it hard to know how to go about praying – how to start, how to continue, what system to use, etc. It didn’t even occur to me that I could have and should have asked for help.
But the Lord is gracious to His saints – His grace found me in this wonderful book.
It’s so simple.
Donald Whitney presents us with a solution for a lack of prayer with three simple words – pray the Bible. Now that you hear it, it sounds so easy doesn’t it?
As a finite human living in still sinful flesh, prayer will probably never be easy for me. Maybe it’s not easy for you either. But here is the hope that Whitney lays out throughout his whole book – prayer does not have to be complicated. God never meant for prayer to be a burden. If prayer feels like a burden, a heavy weight, a difficult task, perhaps we are going about it all wrong. I felt for many years that I was incapable of truly praying if I couldn’t come up with good words to say on my own, even outside of Scripture. Once I understood that this is what I was thinking, I realized that this was a truly blasphemous and shameful thought! The verse that comes to mind is Galatians 3:3, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
Are you feeling foolish now, as I have been? Let me comfort you my dear reader – no where in Scripture does our Lord tell us we must come up with our own original and inspiring words to lift up our prayers before His throne. In fact, we can rejoice that the Lord has provided the words for us Himself! There are many inspiring prayers in Scripture that we can pray through and meditate on. Not only that, the Lord inspired an entire book within the Bible to help us specifically with our prayer! Can you guess it? That’s right – Psalms.
Jesus says in Matthew 6:7, “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.” Here again, we have another reason to seek out God’s word as our means of prayer. I’ve noticed with myself (specifically when I pray out loud and physically hear myself) that I repeat the same line in 3 or 4 different ways and then say amen. I ask in a paragraph what I could have asked in one sentence. Is it wrong for me to pray to the Lord about a certain issue over and over again? Certainly not! However, we do not want to pray long, wordy, and repetitive prayers. I have often chided myself for such short prayers, but I no longer believe short prayers are wrong. If you can’t think of anything else to say, leave it at that! We must not become self-righteous and assume we will “be heard for our many words.” This is where Scripture comes in handy: when we run out of things to say to the Lord about a certain issue the Word of God is full to the brim with both specific and general prayers and inspiring passages that we can lift up directly before the Lord.
In fact, we should run to Scripture before we even run out of things to say as we are praying!
A repeated theme throughout Praying the Bible is the assumption that most of us pray the same old thing about the same old thing. The best (and really only way) to combat this difficulty of running out of things to say is to run to Scripture first and foremost while we are praying! Slow down as you read the Psalms or the epistles – allow the Lord to bring to your mind people, situations, concerns, confessions, adorations, petitions, and thanksgivings for you to pray as you are reading the word. I have only just begun this myself and already I feel new life in my prayers (though it will certainly take time for me to grow and build this new habit and foundation of prayer in my life.)
Dear reader, I believe this book is a perfect read for every Christian, whether young or old, new or experienced. I don’t know anyone who would tell me they are completely satisfied with their prayer life. Therefore it’s quite easy for me to say, everyone must read this book! It’s small, easy to comprehend, and full of practical knowledge, applications, and exercises. And once you’ve read it, your understanding of prayer will be changed for ever.
Until next time, dear readers, enjoy this good book. 🙂
