When you salt and pepper your prayers with references to verses you’ve memorized, it’s a way of using God’s language when you talk to him. Joni encourages you to make the Word of God alive in your life!
SHAUNA: Hi, I’m Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Today Joni has a word, no, actually it’s a song about prayer.
JONI: Because as you know, I love to sing. I also love to pray, and so you know what I will often do? I will open my prayer with a song. Like this morning on the way to work when Ken Tada was driving me, I quoted “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” – that hymn is filled with so many wonderful references to God’s power and might. So, if I’m looking for fresh words with which to praise God, and it’s always good to open any prayer with praise, right? When I’m in search of new words, I will often, often borrow the stanzas of a hymn, like opening my prayer this way: “Oh, God, you are a mighty fortress, a bulwark never failing. You are our helper amidst every flood of mortal ills prevailing,” and so on, and so on. Or I might open my prayer with, “Guide me oh thou great Jehovah, for I’m a pilgrim in this barren land. I am weak but thou art mighty, hold me with your powerful hand.” True, these are old hymns, but they can add so much richness [I mean fresh richness] to your time of praising God.
But as I said at the onset, I also love to open my prayer by singing and by singing Scripture. After all, the Word of God is alive, it’s active, and when you infuse it into your prayers, you are infusing vitality into your praise and petitions. Plus, Jeremiah 23 says that God’s word is like a “fire, like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces.” So, to use God’s word in prayer is to release God’s divine power in breaking strongholds and demolishing the strategies of the enemy. First Thessalonians 2 says that God’s word is at work in our lives. If that is true – and it is – then think how much more God’s word works through our prayers. All this is to say, it’s good to use Scripture and opening up your time of prayer with words of praise.
But, like I said, I like to sing those Scriptures. And I kind of, well, I make up the tune as I go along. Like the other day I used the 23rd Psalm in my time of praise. And so, I sang, [and I’m going to try to remember this as best as I can recollect the tune I invented – it went]: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want; he makes me down to lie in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters and he restores my soul.” See what I mean? I mean, it’s a senseless tune, but it’s just a different way, a fresh and very personal way of bringing God’s word into your prayer. And it’s personal because [guess what?] you make up the tune, and don’t worry; nobody’s listening, nobody cares if you’re off-key or not on pitch. You’re just making a joyful noise to the Lord: a joyful, personal, powerful noise because you are speaking; that is, you are singing to God in his own language. Try it the next time you pray.
Oh, and speaking of God’s language, I think using God’s word in our prayers is so critical, so much so that I wrote about it in a booklet called, “Speaking God's Language.” Look, we all want to exhibit greater faith in prayer, right? So how do we gain greater faith? Faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ. When you salt and pepper your prayers with references to verses you’ve memorized, it’s a way of using God’s language when we talk to him. So let me encourage you to bring the alive and active word of God smack dab in the middle of your intercessions and your confessions and praise.
SHAUNA: You can get your free copy of “Speaking God's Language” by visiting joniradio.org today! And by the way, if you have a prayer request, you can share it at joniradio.org too. Our Joni and Friends staff will be honored to lift your needs up before the Lord.
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