How You Can Deepen Your Prayer Life by Praying Scripture

A few years ago, after reading Beth Moore’s amazing Praying God’s Word, I discovered the joy of praying Scripture over various topics that were important to me, such as praying Scriptures for my marriage or my children or for overcoming fear.

Prayer in and of itself is powerful. When you combine it with God’s Word, well, let’s just say you should be prepared to see some mighty things happen. 🙂

Why You Should Pray Scripture

God gave us His word and He wants us to pray. When you combine the two spiritual disciplines of reading the Word and prayer (by praying Scripture), it will help you apply God’s word to your life while growing deeper in your prayer life.
Praying Scripture honors God by using His own words to praise Him and pray to Him.
We tend to pray for things WE want, but praying Scripture will help align your desires with what HE wants. And when our desires are aligned, that’s when we’re most likely to see God move powerfully in our prayers and in our hearts.
If you don’t know how to pray about something, you can find a Bible verse or passage that will help you say it, deepening your prayer language.

How to Find Scripture to Pray

Find a verse that speaks to you

Think about your favorite verses, and why it speaks to you. Or choose a verse or a passage from your daily Bible reading, and personalize it into a prayer. Or perhaps you stumble across a verse that convicts you and you want to be more godly in that particular area. Then personalize the verse(s) (adding pronouns or specific names of people you want to pray for, adding specific circumstances, etc). It may be a verse or passage you pray once, or it may become something you pray frequently, or even daily.

Find a verse that speaks to a topic you want to pray about

Perhaps you want to pray for your marriage, or your children, or your business, or your health. Look up verses that relate to your topic (you can look online or in a Bible concordance) and then pick a few that speak to you. Write them down and then mold them into a personalized prayer.

Find a list of scriptures to pray about a certain topic

You can find lists of verses to pray online about lots of topics. I have lists of Scriptures for the following topics on my website. Feel free to check them out:

How to Pray the Scripture?

Once you’ve found your Scriptures you want to pray relating to the topic on your heart, I encourage you to keep the verses somewhere where you will see it often and can pray often, and/or keep a list of Scriptures about that topic handy during your prayer time. I have been keeping a binder with specific Scriptures I love praying, with a new page for each topic near to my heart, and adding to that page when I come across a new related scripture.

Incorporate the Scripture into your prayer, but make it personal to the person or situation you are praying for. Insert names or specific details.

For example, let’s say it’s the first day of school and you want to pray for your children and their education. You might look up some Scriptures regarding wisdom and knowledge and learning, and then embed them in their prayers like this:

“Dear God, please be with ________ today on their first day of school. Help him/her/them to hide your word in their heart and to learn more about you and your love for them. Help him/her/them to have a teachable spirit and an ability to focus and learn. May they grow in wisdom and stature and in favor of God and of man. Help him/her/them to find favor with their teachers, to do well in school. Help him/her/them apply their heart to instruction and their ears to words of knowledge. Allow him/her/them to experience the joy of learning more about you and your world and bless their learning, their instruction, their teachers and this school year. {insert specific prayer requests regarding school/education/teachers/friends etc]. May they flourish, grow, and thrive this school year. Amen.”

Here’s to praying Scripture and seeing God do mighty things in our prayer lives, and in our own lives, and in our families!!

Your turn! Have you ever prayed Scripture before? If yes, what are your favorite Scriptures to pray?