Reading the Bible Prayerfully

This is the third installment from Eugene Peterson's book A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, about reading the bible slowly. In this post consider what he writes about reading the bible prayerfully.

We are taught to read in order to gather information. Our schools train us to read books so that we can pass examinations. We’re good at looking for facts. ‘Knowledge is power,’ they tell us. Books contain stuff that we can use to get a degree, fix an engine, hold down a job, solve a mystery. But the Bible is not primarily a source of information; it is one of the primary ways that God uses to speak to us. ‘God’s Word’ we call it, which is to say, God’s voice – God speaking to us, inviting, promising, blessing, confronting, commanding, healing. The Bible is not so much God telling us some thing – some idea, some fact, some rule – as God speaking life into us. Are we listening? Are we answering? Bible reading is prayed reading. Long Obedience In the Same Direction, Eugene H. Peterson, 2000

Paul's Prayer for the Ephesians - Ephesians 3.14-21

"I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

O LORD, Be Gracious to Us

This morning I read this great prayer from Isaiah 33:2

"O LORD, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble."

It is important that we remember that God doesn't owe us grace. Grace is His choice. Yet we stand in need of His grace every moment of the day, and as we approach a new year I for one will be begging God for more and more. Let me encourage you to make this verse your prayer too!