His Glory My Joy, a blog of Author Luana Ehrlich

Prayer is often defined as “just talking to God.”  While that is true as a simple definition, prayer is much more than talking.  To be effective, as in James 5:16,  “the effective prayer of a righteous man has great power,” our talking to our Heavenly Father must also be in communion with Him, must be tuned in to His way of thinking.  And what better way to communicate in this way with God than to use His own words?

One day during an extremely difficult time in our lives, with multiple crisis swirling all around us, my husband, knowing I prayed for him each morning, asked me, “What are you praying for me these days?” I shared with him I was only praying one prayer over and over for both of us.  It was what I called one of my Personalized Scripture Prayers, that is, the very words of God repeated back to Him.  By praying in this way, I could be assured that what I was expressing to the Lord was in keeping with His own heart, was expressing His own desires when we were so uncertain of our own motives and what we needed to do.

Here’s what I was praying for my husband from Colossians 1:9-11, “Father, I pray that he  may be filled with the knowledge of your will, with all wisdom and understanding so that he will walk in a manner worthy of you, to please you in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of you, strengthened with all power, according to your glorious might for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience with thanksgiving.” 

There are numerous passages like the one above that can be personalized and prayed back to God and can be used to “talk to God” in His own words.  Let me know if you have some favorite Scriptures which you pray often to our Lord.