Praying Through Scripture

The most common obstacle in prayer is not doubt. It is running out of things to say by minute three, then repeating the same four requests, then feeling faintly bored and slightly guilty about being bored. Praying through Scripture solves that at the root: you are no longer generating content, you are responding to something already in front of you.

What It Actually Is

Not reading a passage and then praying afterward, which is a fine thing to do and is a different practice.

Praying through Scripture means moving line by line, turning each one back to God as you go. The text sets the subject and the direction; you supply your own situation.

Take Psalm 23:1, "The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing."

You might pray: "You are my shepherd. I do not usually live like I believe that. I keep behaving as though everything depends on my managing it. Show me where I am acting like I have no shepherd."

One line, and you have said something true and specific. Then the next line.

The practice is old. Monastic traditions have used versions of it for centuries, and it survives because it works for ordinary people on ordinary days.

Where to Start

The Psalms. The obvious beginning, since they were written as prayers. They come pre-shaped for this. Psalm 23 for comfort, Psalm 51 for repentance, Psalm 139 for being known, Psalm 13 for a bad stretch, Psalm 103 when you need to remember anything good.

The Lord's Prayer. It functions as an outline. Take each line and expand it with your actual life. "Give us today our daily bread" becomes the specific things you need this week. "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" becomes an uncomfortable and useful pause. Our piece on the Lord's Prayer explained unpacks each phrase.

Paul's prayers. These are the ones people discover late and then use constantly. Ephesians 1:15-23, Ephesians 3:14-21, Philippians 1:9-11, Colossians 1:9-14. They are recorded prayers, and they are extraordinarily good for praying over other people, because Paul asks for things you would not have thought to ask for.

Whatever you are already reading. If you are working through a book, pray the passage you are in. It integrates the two practices without forcing them into the same fifteen minutes.

How to Do It

Pick a small portion. Three to five verses. Genuinely small, because the instinct toward volume is what turns this back into reading.

Read it once through, normally.

Read it again slowly, stopping at whatever catches. Something usually does.

Pray that line back. Agree with it, or ask for it, or admit that you do not currently believe it. All three are legitimate responses.

Move on when you are ready, and do not feel obliged to reach the end. Stopping at verse two because verse two had something in it is a successful session.

Fifteen minutes on four verses is a full practice.

Four Ways to Turn a Verse Into Prayer

Agree with it. Simply say back what is true. "You are faithful. You have not left." This sounds slight and does a surprising amount, especially on days when you are saying it against the evidence you feel.

Ask for it. Where the passage describes something you want to be true of you. Galatians 5:22 becomes a request for patience, named specifically about the situation where you have none.

Confess against it. Where the text describes something and you know you are on the other side of it. This is uncomfortable and it is the part that changes things.

Pray it for someone. Put a name into the passage. Praying Ephesians 3 over your children, using their names, is one of the more substantial things you can do with fifteen minutes.

Why It Works

Three reasons worth knowing, because they explain when to reach for it.

It removes the blank page. The single biggest practical obstacle in prayer is not knowing what to say next. Here the next line is already written.

It moves you off your own list. Left alone, most prayer circles the same handful of concerns. Scripture drags you onto subjects you would not have raised: God's character, other people, things you are avoiding.

It works when you feel nothing. You do not need inspiration to read a line and say it back. Our piece on praying when you don't feel like it leans on this heavily, because it is one of the few methods that functions in a dry season.

Keep It Separate From Study

Worth stating clearly, because trying to do both at once weakens both.

Study asks what the passage means, who wrote it, what it meant then. That is analytical work and it requires a different posture. Our guide on how to study the Bible covers it.

Praying Scripture is devotional and responsive. It uses less text and asks less of your intellect.

Both are worth doing. Different sittings, usually.

The one place they overlap usefully: a passage you have studied is easier to pray well, because you are less likely to pray something it does not say.

With Children and With Your Spouse

This method travels better than most.

With children, take one verse and have each person say one sentence back. It gives them something to hold, which is the hard part when a child is asked to pray from nothing. Our piece on teaching kids to pray covers the wider approach.

With a spouse, it removes the awkwardness that stops many couples praying together, because neither of you has to produce anything. You read a verse, you each respond. Our guide to praying together as a couple uses the same principle.

Family Discussion Questions

• Which line in this passage stopped you, and why that one?
• Is there something here you would like to be true of you?
• Who could we pray this passage over by name this week?

The Bottom Line

Take a small passage, read it slowly, and turn each line back to God as agreement, request, confession, or intercession for someone by name.

Start with the Psalms, the Lord's Prayer, or Paul's recorded prayers in Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians.

Use less text than feels right. Three verses can fill fifteen minutes, and stopping early because something caught is a success rather than a failure.

Keep it separate from study, and reach for it especially in the seasons when you have nothing of your own to say.

Frequently Asked Questions