Featured Summer Book

When you think of prayer, what comes to mind? If you’re like me, you might think of a couple of long, passionate prayer sessions communing with God, followed by and stuck in between many days of short, unfocused, hurried prayers on each end of a Bible reading or scattered throughout the day as I encountered a particular problem. If you have ever in your life struggled to pray, this book is for you.

Praying the Bible by Donald S. Whitney is a super short read, less than a hundred pages, but it’s chock-full of practical wisdom for Christians at any stage of their life and walk with Christ. Whitney’s main insight is that we as Christians (and I’m the first to raise my hand here) often pray “the same old things about the same old things.” Prayer becomes more of a ritual, an entry on a to-do list, or a list of requests rather than an intimate conversation with our Creator, the One who loves us beyond our wildest dreams and gave His very life so that we could know Him and be able to communicate with Him through prayer.

With a clear, practical, and authentic writing style, Whitney walks the reader through a method of prayer that has transformed not only his own walk with Christ, but also those of other well-known preachers like John Piper, George Mueller, and Charles Spurgeon. He advocates that instead of trying to grow our prayer life all on our own, we take our cues from God’s Word. In short, we pray the Bible.

Essentially, the method is the following: pick a passage of Scripture, start reading, pray about whatever comes to mind as you read, and then keep reading. Whitney highlights the Psalms as the easiest passages to pray, but he also teaches praying through other types of Scripture. For example, this morning I read Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55. Verse 50 reads, “And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation.” As I read through that verse, I prayed for God to have mercy on me, a sinner; I thanked God for the God-fearing generations before me; and I prayed for my and my sisters’ future children, that they would fear the Lord.

This method takes the pressure off of ourselves and allows the Holy Spirit to speak to us and guide us through His Words, Scripture. Whitney reminds us that the goal of prayer is communing with God, not hitting a holier length of prayer time or checking “prayer” off of a list of Christian duties. Using God’s language to talk to Him enriches our prayer time and gives us focus to pray, whether that’s for a minute or an hour.

We can even pray through memorized Scripture as we go throughout our days. When Whitney teaches this method, he has his students practice immediately praying through a psalm. As they reflect on that prayer the day after, they realized things like “my mind didn’t wander,” “it seemed like a real conversation with a real person,” and even “the time was too short.” This method doesn’t guarantee perfect prayers by any stretch, but it does offer a way to engage more deeply with God through reading His Word and speaking it back to Him even as we offer up our own requests, needs, and praises.