Scripture and Prayer

For those of us who have been raised in any sort of church setting, we've heard the cute adage "read your Bible and pray everyday and you'll grow, grow, grow!" Though simple and, to be frank, quite elementary, the truth of the matter is that it is also quite insightful.

I say insightful in a sense very loosely, yet in another sense very strictly. It is, no doubt, obvious that such things are necessary for spiritual growth. But at the same time we all know how miserably we fail at such a simple and basic task, do we not? If it is so obvious and if it this standard is fallen short of so often by believers, could it be owing to the very thing Hebrews warns us about, namely our being "hardened by the deceitfulness of sin"? (Heb 3.13).

I think so, which is why I feel this simple reminder is needed for all of us. Read your Bible and pray every day and you'll grow, grow, grow! If you're not experiencing growth—or perhaps substantial growth would be an even better and more challenging (and desirable!) way of putting it—then there is a great chance and a high probability that this is exactly why: either one or both of these things (Scripture and prayer) are falling through the cracks.

That being said, I want to offer more than the reminder to do it. I want to offer encouragement on how to do it and how to do it better better. Here's the secret: "read your bible AND pray."

I was reminded of this helpful distinction last night at our Gospel Community when, during that first graciously intrusive question ("how do you fail at [prayer]?"), many of us were struggling with getting both of these practices down. When I point out the "and", I don't mean to point to the obvious: do both, one and the other. The distinction I'm trying to get at is that you have to do both, together. Without each other, you're really not doing the other one, or at least not hardly so.

Here's what I mean: when you go to read your Bible, pray right then concerning your venture into Scriptures. For instance, here's a prayer that I am very fond of in approaching my Bible reading.

Open my eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law.
Psalm 119.18

Do you see? Before even getting into one (Scripture), you use the other (prayer, which happens to come from Scripture to boot!) to aid you. And already you can see what the next step is/would be. When you pray, use Scripture in your prayers.

Don't reinvent the wheel! You have several hundred pages worth of prayers by godly men and women who you can then see God work on behalf of in response to their prayers. This doesn't mean you can't pray your own prayer, ask for blessings for your specific situation outside the specific scope of Scripture or anything of the sort. What this is getting at is using your resources, your God-given resources, as much as you can.

In the example of above, Scripture was used to pray a simple, quick prayer regarding how to approach Scripture. See how quickly you can start tackling both of these things simultaneously and in the process get even better, more God-honoring and God-granted (and empowered) results?

Pray over Scripture. Use Scripture in prayer. Then turn it back on itself and pray again over Scripture with that Scripture. Keep the cycle going and you'll "grow, grow, grow!"