Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father inspire us to pray to Him according to His Will. Father, we need your help, in all things, but today we ask your help to pray. Please inspire us and guide us by your Spirit to pray to you with ever increasing sincerity and trust. May we be honest and specific and humble when we come before you in the name of Jesus. Cause your Word to be ever present in our minds and on our lips, forming and informing our prayers to you. In the name of Jesus, help us. Thank you for helping us Father! Amen.
Your Morning Song: "Were You There?" by Chris Rice
Your Morning Scripture: Matthew 6:9a
"Pray then like this..."
...
We are all quite familiar with the Lord's Prayer, from Matthew 6, which immediately follows the very small bit of a verse above. But it is one thing to be familiar with it, and another to make use of it. Similar to the "put on" command given to us concerning the Armor of God in Ephesians 6, we are quick to remember the general sense of the verses, and very slow to use them as directed.
A good question here would be, "do we pray in this way, or do we pray these exact words?" A biblical response would be, "yes," or, "there is no difference."
When Jesus says, "Pray then like this" he is both saying to pattern our prayers after the example He gives, and commanding us to pray the exact words as well. Their spoken, daily repetition grounding our own prayers in the exact pattern set by Jesus.
If we're looking to deepen your prayer life, this concept of pattern our prayers after scripture, by praying scripture, is very, very, very much worth our time. But when I say this, I'm going to tack on a brief warning that I often tell my kids.
Don't make it weird.
Please don't hear me saying that every single prayer has to be all scripture, or that if we haven't used scripture as a help before now that we've "never really prayed." Not at all. Weaving scripture into our prayers, while certainly a command in Matthew 6 from Jesus Himself, is also an invitation to joy, a tool for healthy growth, a guide in Godliness, and a firm foundation for our conversations with our Heavenly Father. It is not a churchy box to check, or a way to make sure that others are impressed with our praying skill.
A good word picture for us would be a tomato plant and a trellis. The trellis is a stick or other structure that holds a tomato plant off of the ground. The plant will produce more fruit, healthier fruit, and be less affected by pests and disease. In the same way, we admit our desperate dependance on God, even and especially to pray, when we use the Bible to support us. God's Word is full of goodness, beauty, and truth. And He longs for us to make daily, practical use of His Word to guide our conversations with Him. Not as monotone recitation leading to blank minds and unguarded hearts. But as carefully considered guides that transform our hearts and minds as we pray.
A few examples...
Matthew 6:9-15 --> The Lord's Prayer, a practical foundation for our daily prayers to directly impact our daily living.
Romans 12:1-2 --> Worshipping God on His terms, to be transformed by His Spirit into the likeness of His Son, so that we can know and do His Will.
Lamentations 3:19-26 --> How to both wrestle with our suffering seeming to contradict God's goodness, and also to trust Him in the midst of all storms.
Psalm 23 --> A beautiful reminder of our daily dependance on God as our protector and provider. A mold of gratitude, submission, and trust for our hearts to be conformed to.
Philippians 4:6-7 --> This one is certainly one of the easier selections to add to prayers, given that it so clearly paints a picture of how God wants us to pray to Him and be guarded by His peace.
Proverbs 3:5-8 --> Another look into God's desire for our day to day living, our view of ourselves and how we should interact with Him.
What are some of your favorite verses? Try including them in your prayers, especially at the beginning and watch as God's Word wonderfully enriches and joyously fills up your conversation with Him!
