Crossway published a terrific little book on prayer that can have a big impact on your prayer life. Donald S. Whitney's book, Praying the Bible, is under 100 pages. It'll take no time to read, but it'll give you plenty of practical, insightful counsel on how to enrich your prayer life by praying through Bible passages. Whitney says that this is how we can learn a biblical way of praying and it provides fresh content for our prayers so that it doesn't become routine and dull. Praying the Psalms is how we learn to pray, he states. The Psalms are the Bible's prayer book so it's a particularly good place to start. Praying Scripture keeps us engaged in prayer in a more meaningful and motivating way than the routines we tend to get into.
The book (let me say again, it's under 100 pages) walks through the method so it's easy to grasp how it's done. To supplement the book, Crossway has a five-day email series of videos featuring Whitney teaching and modeling how to pray the Bible.
I can see where this approach would be more suited for worship. I find myself in a continual state of prayer every waking minute. Praying in my thoughts or under my breath when I walk into a room of people, to set a watch over my lips etc., when I go out for the day or attempt a task. When I censor sinful thoughts asking forgiveness etc. I don't have any trouble finding things to continually pray about. Daily Bible reading in the same tone of the book should pretty much be the norm in daily Bible reading.
Posted by: dave | July 24, 2015 at 04:53 AM