Praying God's Word

Two days ago a woman I'll call "Ann" came into my office for an interview. She wanted clothing and a few household items. Before taking her through our intake routine, I felt led to talk about what was on her heart. She seemed so beaten down by life. Her head was hanging down and her droopy eyes seemed to tell a story of heartache and pain. Since I noticed on one of our forms that she requested a Bible and prayer, I saw that as an open door. After throwing out a question or two about how she's doing, I sat back and let her tell some of her story. She was living in a two-bedroom house with ten people. She suffered from some nervous disorder. Ann was basically living a life of unending stress.

As I heard her story, I felt a leading to hand her the Bible she requested and open it up to Matthew 11:28-30. "Ann," I said, "I want you to consider turning your weary life over to Jesus. Listen to what He says about taking our burdens to Him." Then as I began reading this word from the Lord, she began to also read His words out loud. After we ended this chapter, Ann kept staring at this verse, apparently touched by the Spirit of God by Jesus' promise that if we come to Him He truly will give us rest for our souls.

Then I did something that I haven't done too often with our neighbors that come for help. I brieflly taught her how to pray - praying God's word. We prayed together portions of Ps. 86. What had prompted me to do this was an excellent chapter that I've been reading lately in Eugene Peterson's excellent book, Subversive Spirituality. The chapter is titled, "Teach Us to Care...Teach Us Not to Care. Peterson's basic point is that if we Christians help others and minister to them but never recognize the basic problem of mankind is sin and self-centeredness then we're really not caring for them in a deep, Christ-centered way. That's why it's vital that we help teach people how to pray.

Two writers have helped me tremendously in how to pray -- one is Peterson and the other is Beth Moore. They describe how to use God's word to pray. Peterson makes the point that the psalms give us words to pray. I tried this earlier this week -- starting my morning by praying Ps. 86. Then I prayed this prayer at our staff/volunteer devotional. It's so powerful to let God give us His words to pray back to Him. One thing it does is to draw the attention away from our problems and tendency to be self-focused and leads us toward God and His majesty, power and love. And seeking Him and His presence more than just asking Him to fix our problems.

You might check out Beth Moore's book, Praying God's Word -- one of my favorites. Each chapter focuses on a particular problem that you and I would struggle with -- unforgiveness, depression, guilt, feeling unlove, etc.

As I did with Ann, I've found that when I pray over people -- whether it's one on one, in an elders' meeting or in front of a large congregation of saints -- the Holy Spirit seems to move so powerfully when I use His word as a guide for prayer.

This morning I read this verse from Galatians. For the first time I recognized it as a prayer. For today, I'm going to pray it over you:

May grace and peace be yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. That is why all glory belongs to God through all the ages of eternity. Amen. -- Gal. 1:3-5

And amen.

I'd love to hear your experiences of praying the word of God!

Jim