Prayer Guides
Praying God’s Word
For years I have struggled with the discipline to pray daily. I have no problem reading from scripture daily, and studying God’s Word, but praying is hard for me. It could be quite possible that I am just lazy. But regardless of the reason, I desire for this to change in my life. This year I have mentioned that this is the year that I want to live my life in pursuit of God’s purpose. Living that out has been difficult. God has called me to pursue righteousness like Christ is Righteous. I have applied and interviewed for ministry jobs that went well but resulted in others getting the opportunity. I say that not for your sympathy, but to say that quite possibly God isn’t quite done with shaping my heart.
If spending time with God in prayer was important to Jesus, why is it difficult for us? The short answer is we don’t think we need God to handle the day-to-day operations of our lives, just the big picture things. This way of thinking is entirely false and we all need to repent.
As I study my bible, I read that Jesus always prayed before He did something that would change the trajectory of someone’s life. Earlier this year I read a book written by Donald Whitney titled, Praying the Bible. I was experiencing what he described as a boring and inconsistent prayer life. My prayers were stale. They were repetitive and I needed to change my methods because it wasn’t working. Whitney mentions in his book that this universal to all Christians at different phases of our lives. We don’t know how to pray-so we pray …
- To God like He is a vending machine that dispenses out the desired answer to our prayers.
- Only come to Him when we are at rock bottom and have no other answers.
- The same words-the same way because that’s the only way we know.
Martin Luther once said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” I’m not saying that we directly follow that method, but it causes me to stop and think. Do I believe in the power of prayer? I do, and I think you do as well. We just need help. Whitney makes the argument that our purpose in life is to bring honor and glory to God. He has given us His Word to assist us in expressing our worship to Him. His Word is the truth and without error. He desires us to read, pray, and sing those words back to Him. So, as I begin this journey of praying the Psalms, I will be producing prayer guides and posting them on my website.
I need your encouragement and feedback to finish this project. There are 150 Psalms and 119 alone could be divided up into five different guides. I challenge you to pray the Psalms along with me. Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to create vibrant prayer lives among His people.
