Father, our hopes are drying up just like the earth,turned to dust; just like the leaves,shriveled to paper. No sign of change; no rain. How long must your people wither, shiver in thirsty air that claims all moisture as its own? Tears are gone with the wind. Our hearts ache and find no solace. How long must our eyes burn, longing, searching the horizon for some glimpse of hope? Slap the violent out of their arrogance! Pull their stolen chairs out from under their fat bums, grown gross from slurping up the profits of the poor! Nail them to the crosses they’ve erected for the innocent, judging them guilty for their names or point of view! How long, dear King, our Father? We know you rule the universe. Let us see your justice— we beg this of you! Hear our prayer: this petition signed in anxious trust . . . all our hope is in you! I wrote this lament in 2010, in Côte d’Ivoire, where we were living in the northern region still held by rebels who had gained that territory in 2002. They were without compassion, cruel. But so was the government that still ruled the south! There were too many northerners trying to find new hope by going south who were then killed by police or soldiers as “suspect,” since they had a “northern” last name. It was hard to know how to pray. How could justice be done in the middle of such a mess?
Psalm 13 gave me structure for my personal lament. And Psalm 75 gave me hope; it underlines God’s sovereignty and his judgment of the arrogant and those oppressing the poor.
Praying the Word has increasingly become a rich foundation for my prayers. The practice comes in different forms, depending on the context and purpose. Each time it gives guidance in praying according to the Lord’s direction.
One warning: when choosing a Scripture text on which to base such a prayer, you need be careful to not take it out of context in such a way that its message is falsified. Once when I was a guest at a church I had never visited before, the pastor urged anyone in the congregation who had a need to speak their words and whatever they said would happen, that need would be met, that wish fulfilled. The text they were to base their prayer on was this:
So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say: (Num. 14:28 NIV)
People went forward, claiming this as their promise. The pastor had not given them the context, or the following verse:
In this wilderness your bodies will fall– every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. (Num. 14:29 NIV)
The “promise” was that their words of refusal to enter the promised land would be exactly what they would get in return: no entry, just wandering and death! It was a curse, not a formula to follow to manipulate God!
One way to practice praying Scripture on a solid basis is to benefit from the careful work of those who have done thorough research to give useful examples. Kenneth Boa’s books, Face to Face: Praying the Scriptures for Intimate Worship (two volumes), have guided me for years. I use them as I begin my daily quiet time. Boa explains that he based the daily collections of Scripture texts on the eight forms of prayer found in “The Lord’s Prayer”: adoration, confession, renewal, petition, intercession, affirmation, thanksgiving, and closing (from Matthew 6:9-13).[1] He has personalized verses that fit in each of those categories. Every day has a new collection, and I find that they help me not to leave out adoration, or confession, for example, from my prayers. Great reminders!
Adele Calhoun, as usual, puts the purpose of the practice in meaningful terms: “Praying Scripture is a way of entering deeply into the text with a heart alert to a unique and personal word from God. Words and verses that catch our attention become invitations to be with God in prayer. When our prayers seem to be more about maintaining control and offering God our agenda for his stamp of approval, praying Scripture can return us to a simpler state of openness and attentiveness to God.”[2]
It is way too easy to make our prayers only petitions or intercession. I have been learning to broaden the scope, but also to listen carefully to texts that the Lord wants me to use with truly personal application. While doing lectio divina, the text that captures my heart as I concentrate on a Scripture section becomes a focus of prayer as well. This past week one highlighted for me was Romans 7:4:
So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. (Rom. 7:4 NIV)
I underlined the words that became increasingly meaningful to me as I meditated on them, then prayed them back to my Lord, Messiah, personalizing them like this: “You, the resurrected one, the living Christ, you wanted me to belong to you! And you have this purpose for me, now that I am yours: you want me to bear fruit for you, you who are God. I want to do that. I want to do what you want me to. What are you putting before me today? How can I bear fruit today? How about in the future, the immediate or long-term?”
This has put me in a place where I am paying much more attention to the promptings that come my way. I’ve already seen him set up a connection for encouraging a young woman in her growth, one I did not expect. He knew it was coming! When it opened up, I knew immediately it came from him, that it was fruit he wanted me to bear.
Praying the Scriptures is also a practice in the prayer group that Glenn and I attend at our home church, Highland Park Baptist. At “Oasis” on Wednesday evenings, church leaders present a passage and ask for discussion, then open it up for prayer based on the verse or verses just covered. Right now we are slowly going through the book of James. At the end of the session, we divide into small intimate groups to apply the principles in more personal prayer. It is rich. Instead of dealing with long carefully crafted petitions that take over a “prayer meeting,” we focus on God’s Word to us in that moment.
While researching this practice I found a great resource: how to do Scripture-based prayer for a people group that does not yet have the whole Word in their language. It is on the Wycliffe Bible Translators’ site. Since Bible translation is the ministry the Lord led me into, for the least-reached Nyarafolo people in northern Côte d’Ivoire, I deeply appreciate their suggestions for how to pray for a people that does not yet have all the Scriptures, even if you do not have immediate updates and don’t know that much about what is happening. These are the basic steps:
“So when words fail you, open up the Bible and allow God’s words to be your prayer. Here are a few tips that can help get you started:
Find a quiet place to connect with God.
Begin by praying a Scripture that prepares your heart for connecting intimately with God. (Suggestions: Hebrews 4:16, Psalm 119:118)
Use a verse or passage to shape your prayer. (Example: “Lord, the whole earth is yours, and everything in it! The world and all its people belong to you—including the __ people. May they understand the depth of your love for them today” –based on Psalm 14:1)
Allow imagery from Scripture to influence your prayer. (Suggestion: Revelation 7:9-10)
Turn a verse into a first- or third-person prayer.
Pick a verse and declare it as truth for a people group or nation.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray. (He helps us in our weakness, and pleads for believers in harmony with God’s will – cf. Romans 8:26-27)[3]
May we all make progress in praying as our Lord wishes, as we pray his own Word back to him!
[1] Boa, Kenneth. Face to Face: Praying the Scriptures for Intimate Worship. (Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, MI, 1997), pp. vi-vii.
[2] Calhoun, Adele Ahlberg. Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us. (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Books, 2005), p. 246
[3] https://www.wycliffe.org/prayer/how-to-pray-scripture-back-to-god
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