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Prayers for Every Occasion

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The Practice of Prayer (7)

Moreover King Hezekiah and the leaders commanded the Levites to sing praise to the L
ORDwith the words of David and of Asaph the singer. So they sang praises with gladness and they bowed their heads and worshiped. 2 Chronicles 29.30

A ready resource
Early in this series on The Parameters of Prayer, we saw that, when they needed words at a critical moment to guide them in prayer, the first Christians turned to the psalms. They were neither the first nor the last to do so. Hezekiah recognized the value of the psalms in rallying the people back to God. We recall that the Levites were scattered throughout all the territory of Israel. Hezekiah’s instruction would have been taken back to every city, where the Levites instructed and led the people in seeking the Lord using His own words from the psalms.

Other prayers and Scripture also include or depend on words and themes first expressed in the psalms. The psalms were given as a resource to assist us in prayer, and God’s people throughout the ages have found them useful to that end.

There’s no reason why we shouldn’t make better use of the psalms as we work to bolster our own practice of prayer.

Some suggestions
In my book, God’s Prayer Program, I explain why praying the psalms is so helpful, and how we can learn to pray them as our own words. Let me summarize a few of the points I make there.

First, it’s important to become familiar with the psalms by reading them over and over. I recommend, if you’re thinking about learning to pray the psalms, that you add a daily reading in the psalms to your time with the Lord, and that in two ways. First, read and meditate on one psalm per day. Try to experience the mood of the psalm (jubilant? fearful? anxious? urgent?), and to summarize one or two of its main ideas. Make a note on these matters in the margin of your Bible, so that you’ll be reminded of them next time through.

Then, second, read a section of Psalm 119 as preparation for your time in the Word of God. Psalm 119 consists of 22 sections, each comprised of 8 verses, and almost all of it is in the form of a prayer concerning the Word (Law, precepts, testimony, rules, etc.) of God. Here’s a good place to begin in learning to pray the psalms, because you can pray these sections of Psalm 119 practically verbatim, word-for-word, making only a few adjustments as needed.

As you learn to pray Psalm 119, apply what you’re learning there to praying parts of the psalm you’re reading for the day. Where you can pray word-for-word, go ahead and do so. Latch onto those ideas or images in your daily psalm that seem especially appropriate or relevant to you. Turn them into your own words and pray them back to the Lord, keeping in mind as you do the larger context in which these words appear in the psalm.

Now you’re off and running, praying part of Psalm 119 and using what you learn there to begin praying parts of other psalms as you are able each day.

Next, look for some psalms which you think you could easily adapt to your own circumstances, or which you could pray as a general guide for your daily life over and over. When I began praying the psalms, Psalm 8 worked this way for me. The first part got me focused on God and His glory, and encouraged me to seek the glory which God is continually revealing in created things. This, in turn, led me to be more alert and responsive to God throughout the day. The second part led me into prayers of gratitude for my salvation, knowing that it’s only by the grace of God that I know and enjoy Him at all. The final section drew me into praying about the work God has given me to do, and how all my work fits into the overall divine economy in which Jesus is reconciling the world back to God. Then a final word of praise, looping back to the beginning and tying the entire psalm together. It seemed like every time I prayed my way through this psalm it was a different experience, but always covering the same terrain. Sometimes I prayed Psalm 8 verbatim. At other times I would paraphrase, or try re-phrasing the words of the psalm in my own words. At other times I’d use the different sections of the psalm as a kind of springboard into related topics, praying for friends, family, and co-workers, asking the Lord to make Himself known to lost neighbors, or seeking Him for a clearer vision of the Kingdom in its coming.

As you learn to use a familiar psalm to exercise your prayer muscles before the Lord, it will be easy to translate what you learn in that psalm to others as well, until, with time, you begin using all the psalms in your prayers at one time or another.

Always new
Praying through the psalms provides a rich experience of meeting the Lord in new ways on familiar turf. If you’ll take this discipline seriously, and work at it consistently, you’ll find that you never grow tired of praying the psalms, and that all the things Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer are given ample space and fodder to carry your prayers deeper, longer, and with greater joy and satisfaction.

As you grow in your practice of prayer, make room for praying the psalms. And keep making room for them until, in the words of one ancient Irish saint, you make the words of the psalms your own words, and the prayers God has written for you, the backbone of your practice of prayer.

For reflection
1.  What is your favorite psalm? Why? Do you think you could learn to pray this psalm? How?

2.  How would you expect learning to pray the psalms might help your practice of prayer?

3.  What obstacles do you anticipate in thinking about learning to pray the psalms? Could another believer help you to overcome these?

Next steps – Transformation: Choose one psalm to pray every day for the next week. Write it out, so that you have it with you always, and can work through part of it during the day. At the end of that week, wait on the Lord in prayer to see what you’ve learned about prayer and praying the psalms through this exercise.

T. M. Moore
Each of our “next steps” exercises is tied into goals and disciplines involved in working your Personal Mission Field. If you have not yet identified your Personal Mission Field, watch the brief video showing you how to get started right away (click here). Learn how to work your Personal Mission Field by finding a friend and signing-up for our Mission Partners Outreach.

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ReVision each day at no charge, together with a PDF download of each week’s study. God provides the needs of this ministry through the prayers and gifts of those who believe in our work and benefit from it. Please seek the Lord in prayer, and wait on Him concerning whether you should share in the support of The Fellowship of Ailbe with your gifts. You can donate online with a credit card or through PayPal by clicking the Contribute button here or at the website. Or send your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 19 Tyler Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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