In the months since writing for “Attention to Orders,” an experiment in daily devotion writing that was well-received and short-lived due to the realities of life and ministry, I have always wanted to pick it back up on a weekly basis.

In this modest beginning I propose to clarify what I mean by “Passage to Pray” at the end of each entry. Praying the Scriptures was introduced to me by two men in my theological training who team-taught the same course at Dallas Theological Seminary. The first was Dr. Howard Hendricks, beloved far and wide for more than fifty years as a Bible expositor; revered by thousands of pastors and seminary graduates for introducing them to methodical Bible study. In his book, Living By the Book, which he co-authored with his son, “Prof” teaches the reader to read the Bible “prayerfully.” It was his teaching partner in the team-taught “BE101: Bible Study Methods and Hermeneutics” who demonstrated this remarkable and obvious approach to enriching your prayerful relationship with God. Prof Hendricks’ teaching partner was Dr. Mark Bailey, currently the president of Dallas Theological Seminary and also a distinguished professor of Bible Exposition.

Dr. Bailey took the class to a Psalm, perhaps like Psalm 8 in a good English Bible (word-for-word translation) like the KJV, NKJV, NASB, etc, and he just prayed through it. It was remarkable how simple and–as I stated before–obvious this was as I prayed along with him, listening to his praise of our God using the Word of God. Try reading the following passage, observing the pronouns:

Psalm 8:1–2 (NASB95)

    1    O Lord, our Lord,

How majestic is Your name in all the earth,

Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!

    2    From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength

Because of Your adversaries,

To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.

To read these words aloud is to pray to the God of David with the words of David. Actually, most of the Psalms are prayers, if you define prayer as personal communication from man back to God. This is the part this is so obvious, just in terms of literary genre. The Scriptures are designed specifically to enable us to glorify God in prayer.

Praising God according to His Word, describing Him as He truly is in a loving and exalting way is a skill that takes practice and often seems impossible to do at first. Think of the most skilled musicians or craftsmen. Genius is almost always innovation that builds upon existing techniques. Yes, there are the game-changing geniuses that define entirely new structures, like Isaac Newton or J. S. Bach. But the Mozarts and Beethovens come along only by building on their forebears’ genius. To pray well, I suggest that the best starting point is to copy from the pros in the Psalms.

My friend and one of several pastoral mentors, Charles Clough, mentioned praying the Scriptures back to the Father the other day in his latest Framework course for Chafer Seminary. I was reminded of this very helpful technique that few seem to know about, and it spurred me on to re-start “Attention to Orders.” Praying this way really unlocks the Psalms and parts of the Prophets so that the Spirit can use their content to saturate our souls with Truth.  Focusing on these passages and allowing them to direct our thinking causes our communication to follow suit.  Skillful prayer is really a matter of imitation.

May you be encouraged and proficient in worshiping our Creator, Savior, and Judge as you address Him with His thinking in His Spirit through His Son.