I will often open my bible, and read what is there. I ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truths and inspirations of those verses I read. A word or a phrase or a paragraph or whatever will sort of "come off the page at me", and I will stop there. I meditate a little (or a lot) and then I can usually use that as my "revelation" of what to pray for at that particular time. The bible is so full of prayers. The Psalms, the letters, Isaiah, have lots of prayers, as do so many other books of the bible. This reading from the book of Ephesians chapter 1, verses 16 and 17:
"I have never failed to remember you (insert name of person you are praying for) in my prayers and to thank God for you. May our Lord Jesus Christ give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed to bring you to a full knowledge of him."
1 corinthians 16:verses 13 and 14: (I want to pray this one for myself, but insert whatever name you want here) "Lord, Help me to be awake to all the dangers; to stay firm in faith; to be brave and strong - to have courage and truth. Help me to do everything I do or say in love".
Or the passion of Christ and after the resurrection - Luke - chapter 22 through chapter 24. Meditate on each event there, and pray as you are being prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray. Or Luke Chapter 11 - The Lord's prayer. Wonderful scriptures to pray!
Pray with a daily devotional - one that has scriptures with that day. Read those scriptures, read the devotion for the day, then your prayer can take off from there.
Then, of course, the Psalms. Find one that is speaking to you and meditate on all the words. Pray it! Psalm 5 - titled MORNING PRAYER in my Jerusalem bible - especially verses 1-3, are a great prayer to start your day. Psalm 51 - a psalm of repentance. Just a few verses that pray!
Go on your own "treasure hunt" through the verses of the bible. You will be rich and blessed, and grow close to God.
Prayer and the words of God from scripture, are so powerful! They work well together.
8 comments:
Thank you Mom, for teaching me how to read the bible in a way that brought it to life for me. I am not one who can start at the beginning and stay interested. I just flip it open and always seem to see what I need to right then. It always fits what I am going through or prompts me to pray for something heavy on my heart.
Thank you very much. I needed to know this. I REALLY needed to know this. I read the Bible all the time, but don't really ever recall praying the Bible. Now I will start doing this. You are my blessing.
This is very similar to what I am learning about praying in my Tuesday night class. I love doing just what you have described here Aunt Lonnie. This is similar to what my mom shared with me many years ago. Thank you for posting this!
Linda, I am the same way...I cannot do the start to finish - i seem to open and apply. Michelle is such a braniac, it just comes naturally for her....the history and facts in the bible.
We are studying 3 stances of prayer in the Tuesday night class that I am taking. Desire, Vigil and Desperation. I hope I have that right.
I am very excited about it!
Hey, Terry - describe for us those three: Desire, vigil and desperation. Teach us what you are learning.
Thanks, Mickey and Linda for your comments, too.
You guys are MY blessings!
I will Aunt Lonnie, I have to do it from home and reference my notes. Hopefully I can get onto a computer from home, if not, by this weekend I can put my notes up to share!
What do you do whan you can't pray?
You ask others to pray - It's called "standing in the gap" for you. Just let us know when you need that. I've been there so many times. Sometimes we can not pray. But the rest of us can do that for you. And remember - it's all a spiritual battle. Like when Moses and the Israelites were fighting the malekites, or some ...kites, and as long as he held his arms up in prayer to God, they were winning the battle, but when he got tired and discouraged and let his arms go limp, they would be losing the battle. So when he couldn't do it anymore, his people he had beside him held his arms up so they could win! That's what we can do for you, Mickey. Just let us know. We'll hold you up until you can pray again! And I'll ask you to do that for me, too, next time I feel like I can't pray. Ok?
Can you google in "Standing in the Gap", when it comes up go to page 2, then go down to 3rd one down and click it - picture of soldier, "somebody's praying me through). It's so good. There are lots of good stuff on this site about standing in the gap.
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