A Simple Way to Revamp Your Prayer Life

The alarm sounds. I yawn as I try to wipe away that early morning groggy feeling. Immediately,  I have a choice to make;  I can give my first thoughts to God in prayer and worship, or I can engage in a Godless liturgy of scrolling, stressing over the cares of the coming day. I can go through the motions of activity without acknowledging God in any of my ways. More often than I’d like to admit, my daily call to worship involves scrolling rather than Scripture, prating instead of prayer.

I know that prayer is foundational to the Christian life, but sometimes there’s a disconnect. As a Christian, I know I should pray in order to maintain ongoing communion with God in my daily life. Despite its importance, I often struggle to pray as I ought. I find myself yearning to revamp my prayer life. Do you resonate with this desire for a deeper connection with God, too? If so, we are not alone.

Let’s face it—the path of prayer isn’t always smooth. Distractions, doubts, and a lack of routine often keep us from engaging meaningfully with God. Whether it’s the allure of our smartphones or the monotony of repetitive prayers, many of us find ourselves wrestling with the challenge of prayer. As a person diagnosed with ADHD, the struggle to focus in prayer is challenging and many times downright discouraging. Yet, in acknowledging my weaknesses and embracing my limitations, I can take the first step toward growth and transformation in my spiritual life. So can you.

What Keeps Us from Praying?

There are many reasons we may struggle to pray. Sometimes we are too driven by our emotions and feel that we’re in a dry patch or that God doesn’t seem to be listening. Maybe we don’t feel like praying, so we’re afraid to go through the motions because we know God despises heartless devotion (Matt. 15:8). Sometimes we even feel unworthy to come to God, so we simply run and hide from him.

At other times, we’re too busy or too distracted. We go through a stint of staying up late, and we’re too tired to wake up early in the morning to be with our God. Our phones, tablets, televisions, and jobs keep our minds so preoccupied that prayer simply gets pushed aside. We can’t seem to quiet the voice that says, “You’ve got so much to do today. You don’t have time to pray.” Yet even these reasons probably aren’t what primarily keep us from coming to God in prayer.

Donald Whitney sums it powerfully in Praying the Bible:

I maintain that people—truly born-again, genuinely Christian people—often do not pray simply because they do not feel like it. And the reason they don’t feel like praying is that when they do pray, they tend to say the same old things about the same old things.” (Kindle Location 96)

In other words, we often don’t come to God in prayer because we have prayed in such a way that we’re bored with our own prayers. God is not boring, but we come to him with the same old well-worn words over and over again. We have been taught to pray, but perhaps these well-meaning people laid the wrong foundation for us. Just as I picked up the southern dialect and grammar from my mother and father, so we pick up a prayer dialect from our spiritual mothers and fathers. Sometimes this leads to monotonous, rote, routine prayers.

Imagine a husband who wakes up every morning at exactly 6:05 a.m. He fixes his coffee, brushes his teeth, and splashes water in his face. Half-asleep with coffee breath, he stumbles over to his wife and says, “My dear wife, thank you for our marriage and your love. I want to be a better husband and show you that I love you more. I promise to do better today, and I’ll even read some books about it. Will you help me with some projects around the house, take the kids to basketball, and throw my clothes in the laundry. You’re so awesome. Have a good day!” Doing this day after day would become monotonous quickly. And even worse, there would be no sense of a genuine relationship whatsoever!

So often, this is how we learn to pray! Instead of building a relationship with God, we fall into patterns of intro, a sense of guilt about our sin, a quick thanksgiving, and then a laundry list of requests or supplications. None of this is inherently sinful. But you can sense how hard it would be to sustain a genuine relationship with this sort of conversation. Doesn’t it make sense that prayer would become a drag if we are merely being heard for our empty phrases and simple man words (Matt. 6:7).

A Simple Solution

Despite our complex lives with all our gizmos, gadgets, and distractions, one timeless solution still stands—praying the Bible. This method has withstood the test of time, and it offers us a pathway to a deeper relationship with God and revamps our prayer life with renewed purpose and passion. The Word of God, especially the Psalms, has long been the prayer book for God’s people. And praying the Bible can breathe life into the dry bones of our prayer lives as well.

How do we pray the Bible? It’s actually quite simple. And the best part is that you can do it anytime and anywhere if you have a Bible, a phone, or Scripture hidden in your heart.

First, select a passage of Scripture. If necessary, take some time to read and meditate a few moments on the meaning of the text. Don’t turn this into a Bible study, and don’t get lost in study Bible notes, side bars, or commentaries. Just get a basic understanding of your passage.

Next, begin praying the words of Scripture back to God. Pray whatever comes to your mind about the passage. Pray the thoughts that surfaced as you were reading and meditating. Confess sins that come to your mind as you see the duties laid out in the passage. Intercede for believers who need the Lord’s help in light of your scripture reading. Seek the Spirit’s help to apply God’s Word to your life today. Worship God as you see His attributes on full display in the text. Thank God for his redemptive work as you see Christ in Scripture.

It’s so simple, but the benefits of such prayer are immeasurable. From the Lord’s Prayer to the Psalms, the Bible is a river overflowing its banks and flooding our hearts with words for prayer. If we commit to praying the Bible daily, our lives will be radically changed. Our hearts will be more Godward, and we will become hungry for God’s presence.

Are you hungry to improve your prayer life? Do you desire to revamp your devotional time with God. Commit yourself to praying the Bible. Whether you’re working through a specific Bible reading plan, memorizing a passage, or doing a deep study in a specific section of Scripture, you can easily add this prayer practice today. The Lord will meet you in fresh ways as you pray the Bible.