Praying the Scripture Weekends - 02/10-11/2024 - Introducing a Method for Praying Through the Psalms
Welcome to the weekend, Seeds of Faith community!
Scripture is God’s inspired word, the sacred story that makes sense of the world. Prayer is our response to God. Every 2nd and 4th weekend in 2024, we are considering how the Bible can not only reveal God to us, but also guide us in our praying.
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.
Last time, we saw that the psalms are a resource that allows us to give fresh voice to our praying. Today, we will be introduced to a simple method for praying through the psalms. Dr. Whitney helpfully does plenty of showing to accompany the telling in this chapter as he introduces the method, employing the familiar twenty-third psalm.
Here’s his leading example:
“You read the first verse—‘The Lord is my shepherd’—and you pray something like this:
Lord, I thank you that you are my shepherd. You’re a good shepherd. You have shepherded me all my life. And, great Shepherd, please shepherd my family today: guard them against the ways of the world; guide them into the way of God. Lead them not into temptation; deliver them from evil. O great Shepherd, I pray for my children, cause them to be your sheep. May they love you as their shepherd, as I do. And, Lord, please shepherd me in the decision that’s before me about my future. Do I make that move, that change, or not? I also pray for our under-shepherds at the church. Please shepherd them as they shepherd us.”
Here’s what I see and appreciate in this example, which is indicative of the rest of his examples throughout chapter three.
First, Dr. Whitney draws from the immediate, plain meaning of the phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd.” In the psalm, this is simply a statement about the nature of David’s relationship with the Lord. In his example prayer, Dr. Whitney begins by taking that up and finding himself in the words of David: “Lord, I thank you that you are my shepherd.”
Second, Dr. Whitney takes up the scriptural metaphor and allows it to guide his praying imagination. In this case, the image of God as the great Shepherd provides fresh words for praying over his family, himself and his circumstances, and his church leaders.
It is not only fresh words, however. It is in the nature of metaphor to lead us into ways of thinking we don’t foresee. In the example above, because the image of God as Shepherd is giving shape to his praying, he asks the Lord to guard and guide them, notions that are unlocked in the mind by the image of God as their Shepherd.
And this leads him, thirdly, to connections across the bible that come into his praying too. Petitions to guard and guide bring the petition from the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead them not into temptation; deliver them from evil” (Matthew 6, Luke 11) into the prayer at that point.
Dr. Whitney continues with examples throughout the first few verses of Psalm 23, eventually pointing out, “You can continue praying in this way until either (1) you run out of time, or (2) you run out of psalm.”
The example above and others throughout this chapter in his book give us an entryway to begin practicing for ourselves, so that’s what I’ll invite you to do between now and next time. At that point, we’ll find additional helpful instruction and commentary on the method. But we have all we need in order to begin.
I’ll leave you with Dr. Whitney’s summation of what is happening as we pray this way.
“So basically what you are doing is taking words that originated in the mind and heart of God and circulating them through your heart and mind back to God.”
Consider: What biblical metaphors have helped shape your praying imagination?
“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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Love the beautiful Psalms and love to study Biblical metaphors!