Spiritual Disciplines for the Soul: Praying the Scriptures

William Gaultiere, Ph.D. © 2006

Every day upon rising and lying down for the night Jesus, like all godly Jews of his time, prayed the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, NIV).  He also recited it at the beginning of every service in the synagogue.  The Shema was so much a part of Jesus’ worship and consciousness that he made it the basis of his teaching on the Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:29-31) and used it to proclaim himself to be the Messiah and Son of God with the words, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30, KJV).

In addition to his ritual praying of the Shema Jesus also prayed the Psalms regularly (see "Praying the Psalms") so it should be no surprise to us that he taught his disciples the ritual of praying the Lord’s Prayer, which he himself prayed (Luke 11:1-4).  Unfortunately, some Christians mistakenly think that reciting the Lord’s Prayer is an example of the “vain repetition” in prayer that Jesus taught against (Matthew 6:7-8), but Jesus himself repeated a certain prayer three times in the Garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will”  (Matthew 26:36-44). (The vain repetition that Jesus condemns is insincere prayers that attempt to use words to manipulate God.)  The early Christians understood Jesus to have instituted a ritual use of the Lord’s Prayer because they prayed it three times each day and also in all their worship services.

The way to pray the Lord’s Prayer or any of the other prayers or passages of the Bible is to pray from our hearts.  Just mouthing the words won’t honor God or connect us with his presence and power.  To make the words of Scripture a personal prayer we must let the words inhabit us and become our very own.  To do this we can take the Scripture we’re praying and go through it phrase-by-phrase, thinking and feeling about the words, paraphrasing them into our own words, and then elaborating on them with specific prayers for ourselves or others.  In this way a prayer like the Lord’s Prayer which can be recited in twenty seconds might become twenty minutes or more of prayers for the day at hand.  (Although just a few minutes of praying Jesus’ prayer from your heart regularly will have a profound transformational effect on your entire being, changing the way you think about and relate to God, yourself, other people, and life situations.)

Everyday I practice the spiritual discipline of praying the Scriptures and I try to do this throughout the day as this, more than anything else, helps me to practice the presence of God.  There are two ways that I like to pray the Scriptures.  One is to pray through it as I do my daily devotions through Scripture, turning Bible reading into meditation.  The other way is to memorize a beloved passage like the Lord’s Prayer or Psalm 23 and then pray through it as I’m getting ready in the morning, driving in my car, waiting somewhere, or lying in bed at night (see Deuteronomy 6:4-9).  I also do this with verses of Scripture that I memorize and return to in pray during the day.

Psalm 23 is a favorite Bible passage of mine to pray through in this meditative, personalized way.  In David’s psalm about the Good Shepherd and his sheep the flow of God’s abundant life is portrayed in rich imagery that touch every aspect of my life’s journey: worship, rest, trust, confession, decisions, difficulties, forgiveness, ministry to others, practicing the presence of God, and more.  This is a great passage to learn how to pray through the Scriptures.  You just begin like this:

“The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want…”  Jesus you are my Good Shepherd and I am your sheep, along with these others.  Thank you.  I love you.  I praise you – you’re wonderful, wise, all-powerful, and always kind.  Right now and all day today I want to rely on your care for me.  Today as I ________ I need you to shepherd me… “He makes me to lie down in green pastures…” 

In addition to the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 there are many, many other passages in the Bible that are especially helpful for prayer.  Of course, the Psalms are the Bible’s prayer book.  There are a number of very short phrases of Scripture that make wonderful Breath Prayers that are easy to carry through the day.  For spiritual warfare the armor of God can be symbolically put on in prayer (Ephesians 6:10-18).  For confession of sin the Ten Commandments and other sin lists can be used.  In his epistles Paul includes a number of powerful prayers that we can participate in or offer to others in intercessory prayer, as Paul himself was doing (Ephesians 1:15-23, 3:14-21; Philippians 1:2-6; Colossians 1:9-14; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, 23). 

The bottom line on praying the Scriptures as a spiritual discipline: any Scripture verse or passage can and should be used for prayer at any time and in any place!