prayer

The word of God is an incredible aid in prayer. There are several reasons for praying through the Scriptures. Here a few.

It’s biblical. Jesus did it. While on the cross, he prayed Psalm 22. “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matt. 27:46)? And so did the early church. “And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’ (Acts 4:24-26). That comes directly from Psalm 2.

Praying Scripture helps to direct your train of thought. All of us struggle with maintaining our train of thought when praying. What do you do when this happens? Too often we’’ll probably give up after a while. But if you’re using the word as your guide in prayer, then you have an answer for this problem. If you loose track of what you’re praying about, or get distracted, just return to the Scriptures and pick right back up again. Simply go right back to the next verse, and start praying again.

It allows God to direct our prayers. Perhaps he has more insight into what we need than we do? Instead of going to God with a list of things to pray about, maybe sometimes it would be wise to talk about the things he wants to talk to you about. If you do, you’ll probably find that along the way he ends up addressing the very concerns that were on your mind to begin with.