Just Pray It!

Most people are pro-prayer. Like, think about it, it’s pretty rare when if you ask someone, “Can I pray for you?” for them to refuse it. Even those who may not believe in God often still accept this gesture. Sometimes, we find ourselves in a situation where we feel like we don’t know what to pray. I can be moments where we are overwhelmed or at a loss for words. We are going to look over the next several weeks at the powerful tool we have to pray scripture. 

What better prayer guide or prayer book than the inspired word of God? If you’re in a situation where you don’t know what to say or how to say it, you can use God’s word to inform you, how to pray, what to pray, or even just pray it verbatim. 

This begins with us knowing and reading God’s word. We aren’t going to pray something we’ve never touched or read. Obviously, we can pick it up and use it word for word, and that’s great, but the deeper level of intimacy with God is when his word takes deep root in our lives and we begin to use it naturally as our guide for everything. When we love the Bible and meditate on the Bible, we will rely on the Bible when we don’t know what to say.

So what is the preface for this series of learning to use scripture as a guide for our prayers? How do we learn to “Just Pray It”? 

We begin with an instruction to love the word of God in Psalm 1:2. We are called to delight or take great pleasure in the Bible. This means we need to learn to value God’s Word highly. What we love most has a big impact on our lives. I wouldn’t do your laundry, probably not even if you asked nicely, but I will do my wife’s laundry. Why, because I love her more than I love you (no offense). I like music, but I don’t stay up until midnight to hear the new release of every artist, but when Taylor Swift releases a new album, I’ll stay up so I can hear her new music. This is because what we love the most has the biggest impact on our lives. 

This is why reading God’s Word has to be more than just an obligation. We need to see Scripture as, what it is, the living breathing, active Word of God. Let us ask God to give us a love for His Word. Let’s get excited to study it and hear it preached. If we love it we will know it and when we know it we will begin to speak and pray it. 

Psalms 1 continues in verse two with an instruction to meditate on God’s word. This means we need to process what we read in it slowly, over time, again and again. Just like a cow chewing the cud, working it for all the nutrients that can are contained within it, so too should we slowly digest what we receive from the Bible. 

Let us plant our lives in God’s Word. Let us soak in it’s truth and wisdom. When we are pressed by life, what comes out is what is on the inside of us. Just as if I soak a rag in water, when that rag is squeezed,  water comes out so too will the truth of God’s Word come out of our mouths and in our prayers if we have properly absorbed it. 

Just pray it! Let God’s word be our instruction book as we learn to rejoice and to mourn. May the Bible be instructive to us and guide us into the abundant life God has created us to live.