Prayer is an essential component of Bible reading, but often ignored. “It is amazing, after all these years, how many times I simply start reading without praying. And I can tell the difference, profoundly.”[1] Maybe this is one reason why our delight in God from our Bible reading is so short-lived.
Pray Before You Read
We read with the foundational conviction that we are called to focus our lives—our attention and our delight—on heavenly things (Colossians 3:1–2). And we are to avoid setting our attention and delight on the things of man (Matthew 16:23). So what’s the solution to an enduring encounter with the Word? “I think maybe the most helpful thing I could do is to bring you into a lesson God is teaching me afresh at age seventy that I should not have to be taught again after sixty years as a Christian. I have one tip for you that is just so front-burner for me right now.” The tip: pray, before you read your Bible, that God “would come and meet you in the reading of Scripture and open the eyes of your heart and show you what is really there, and make himself real, and bring about amazing changes in your life” (Ephesians 1:18). It makes a real difference.
Six Ways God Answers Us
If we pause and pray before we read, God will answer us in six ways.
1. We will hear. By our pre-Bible reading prayer, “God creates a supernatural atmosphere” to remind us “this moment is not just about you and a book. It is about you and the living God.”
2. We will see. God will answer and show us new things in Scripture. “Most of us are blind to the glories embedded by God in the very words that he has given us. We read them so casually. Reading the word Spirit, the word glory, the word cross, the word sin without praying is one experience. Reading those words after praying may be cataclysmically different, a different kind of seeing in those same words.” Divine weightiness attends to God’s word as it is prayed over.
3. We will feel. We want the right affections to attend our reading. “If you pray, God will open your heart to feel the preciousness of glorious things and the horror of evil things that you would not otherwise feel,” because “most of us do not feel emotions that accord with the realities we are thinking about. This is a work of the Spirit, and he does it in answer to prayer.”
4. We will be changed. By praying before reading, “God will work changes in you that you would not otherwise experience,” changes in your war against sin, desires for holiness, conquering of bad habits, recharging new resources for your relationships, and increased experience of the fruits of the Spirit.
5. We will be guided. “If you pray this prayer at the beginning of your Bible reading, God will from time to time provide the very guidance and leading that you have been longing for in regard to big decisions in your life. God delights to bring fresh vision and guidance into the life of his children while they are spending time with him in his Word.”
6. We will recalibrate to true reality. Reading the Bible will give us new eyes to see spiritual realities, the lostness of the world, and the eternal future we each have.
So each day, “pause before you read, and earnestly—with as much heartfelt longing as you can muster—pray to God that he would come and meet you in the reading of Scripture and open the eyes of your heart and show you what is really there and make himself real and bring about amazing changes in your life.”[2]
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Sources
[1] APJ 903: “Why Is My Delight in God So Short-Lived?” (July 22, 2016).
[2] APJ 903: “Why Is My Delight in God So Short-Lived?” (July 22, 2016).