Looking at Prayer a Little Differently (Pro. 12)

Recently, after a friend asked me about it, I purchased and have been reading through (and praying through) Matthew Henry’s A Method for Prayer: with scripture-expressions, proper to be used under each head. Yes, it is archaic; yes, it is awkward to read, especially out loud as prayers; yes, even its subtitle is offensive to this world in which we live (much less its content true to the Bible and politically incorrect); however, praying through this book has been teaching me valuable lessons.

While I’ve known that scripture can be/may be/should be prayed, I confess that in the past, I have done it very little. Even thinking about praying using the words of the scripture seemed awkward. This has been my loss. I find that there is little more comforting than knowing that my prayer is uncorrupted because I am using His words. My will is easy to far too easy to pray, but sometimes knowing what to pray and how to pray it is hard for my human flesh to grasp. His Spirit speaks through His Word, and turning scripture into prayer speaks in ways I would never think to do. Is it the only way to pray? No! The Spirit lives within the believer, speaking forth truth. We should not pray this way because someone told us to do so, but because it is the natural overflow when reading the Word to give it back to the One who gave it to us.

How well Mr. Henry knew the scriptures and pulled them together to pray them is sobering. I have read and studied the Bible since I was a girl of nine years of age who got her first grown-up Bible for Christmas (with her name stamped upon the bottom corner, of course). That it was also written in the archaic and hard-to-read King James Version phased me not in the least. I loved it, delighted in it, and wanted desperately to understand it and apply it to my own life. Unfortunately, somewhere in my teenage years I lost the desperation to apply it to my life, and although the desperation was later restored to me, in my twenties, the child-like trust I had first read it with, the eyes that had looked for the good things in the LORD, was slower to return to me. That trust has grown through the years as I have soaked in the Word, and I still do not know the Word anywhere near the depth of Matthew Henry, but how I want to! I want to know God so well that I can link scriptures from Genesis to Revelation so naturally not only in reading and studying and teaching, but also in speaking with God in prayer. Here is one example taken from Matthew Henry’s prayer book (in the chapter about petitions and particularly related to the “merit and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we rely upon as our main plea in our petition for the pardon of sin”:

We know that as thou art gracious and merciful, so thou art the righteous God that loveth righteousness, and wilt by no means clear the guilty. We cannot say, Have patience with us, and we will pay thee all; for we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. But Jesus Christ is made of God to us righteousness; being made sin for us, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Psalm 11:7, Exodus 34:7. Matthew 18:26, Isaiah 64:6. 1 Corinthians 1:30. 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Even Henry’s manner of indicating the scriptures he is praying offers insight for the reader, making it easy to go find the the scriptures and read the surrounding context. 

I am also learning as a result of this journey to better apply the scriptures to myself. This time instead of reading through the familiar Proverbs as I have at times in the past, mining it for treasure, looking for places where it fits me, I am reading through Proverbs more like I should, looking at myself, asking questions, praying for wisdom, and praying the wisdom of the Word be applied to my life. Here is one example from my reading today in chapters 12-15 of what I am talking about, the context ranging from being a wife to what I think about, say, and even eat:

Ch. 12 Questions: 

1. Am I open to correction or am I stupid, and if I am being stupid, how do I stop being stupid? (12:1)
2. Verse 4 says, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who causes shame is like rottenness in his bones.” Am I crowning my husband through my “excellence” (or by being a wife of valor according to the footnote) or am I bringing shame to him?
3. Am I thinking rightly17 or listening to wicked (worldly) counsel? (12:5)
4. Am I a counselor of peace, speaking truth, promoting health, bringing joy, bringing the Lord delight? (12:15-22)
5. When I am feeling depressed, is it because there is anxiety hidden in my heart? (12:25)
6. Am I cooking enough of the deer meat my husband has been able to harvest? Am I being diligent with what the Lord has given me? (12:27)
7. Am I staying to the path of righteousness, stepping towards life (12:28)?

How I am learning to apply this better to my own life through prayer:

Father, 

Your word says that if I love instruction, I am loving knowledge. Help me to love knowledge more than I love being right, which seems to equal stupidity. Help me to particularly apply this in my marriage, as I am pretty sure that if there is a proving ground for this concept, it is in my marriage.To hear correction from any source is already hard because my pride, my flesh rises up, but when my husband offers correction, something entirely different rises up in my spirit that so wants to resist it, even when it is deserved. Help me not to be proud, which only brings strife, but to be wise and build my house instead of stupidly tearing it down with my own hands. Instead, let me be an excellent wife, a courageous one who crowns her husband by her words and actions (and even her thoughts) instead of causing him shame. Don’t let my heart be ruled by a world that doesn’t understand You and promotes evil counsel and independence and all things perverse to the institution that represents Christ and His Church. Let me be a woman who only speaks truth, Your truth that has sunk deep into my soul, instead of a fool who is quick to speak and right in her own eyes and quick-tempered when she is confronted with her own foolishness. Help me to speak life and counsel peace and obtain the joy that goes with being on Your path. Help me not to be too lazy to cook for my husband the things that you have given us to eat by his hands. Help me to always be thankful and have a merry heart because it has understanding and seeks knowledge instead of feeding on foolishness. Help me to speak apt words and have joy by the answer of my mouth instead of feeding on regret because I have spoken or thought poorly. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord!

I hope you, too, will dig into God's word, and feast and have fellowship with God through His Son Jesus Christ! Get wisdom!