Praying the Scripture Weekends - 01/13-14/2024 - A Problem We Face in Prayer
Welcome to the weekend! Scripture is God’s inspired word, the sacred story that makes sense of the world. Prayer is our response to God. The Bible not only reveals God to us, it can guide us in prayer.
Dr. Whitney names a problem that many Christians face in their praying. He writes:
“I maintain that people—truly born-again, genuinely Christian people—often do not pray simply because they do not feel like it. And the reason they don’t feel like praying is that when they do pray, they tend to say the same old things about the same old things.” (p. 11)
Confession — I’ve felt that myself.
Now it’s important to note that most of the “same old things” that we are praying are exactly the things we ought to continue praying about. The persistent widow, the role model for prayer in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18, doesn’t give up coming to the unrighteous judge simply because she has the “same old thing” to ask for. On the contrary, it is because she has the same thing to pray about that she continues to petition so diligently!
Dr. Whitney makes this point himself, pivoting to what may really help us.
“Therefore the problem is not that we pray about the same old things; rather it’s that we say the same old things about the same old things.” (p. 20)
Fresh words about the same old things can benefit us. People need a healthy mix of routine and spontaneity, the expected and the novel.
The Bible’s own words can give us new words and images with which to voice our prayers to the Lord.
In my praying recently, I’m learning to persevere in prayer and the biblical image the Lord has given me is that of Jacob wrestling the angel in Genesis 32 and not letting go until he’s given a blessing. I don’t want to “give up at 4:00am” when I need to persevere to daylight praying until God answers.
Consider: What biblical story or image describes your praying these days?
Praying the Scripture Weekends is currently referencing the book Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney, professor of biblical spirituality and associate dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Click here to get a copy if you’d like to read it on your own.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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