A Guide to Deepening Your Prayer Life- Salt + Sparrow

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Traveling with Jesus Christ, doing daily life with Him, watching Him pray to the Father—these experiences deeply revealed something to the disciples. They didn’t know how to pray like their Teacher. And so they made a request that many of us would like to have been there for:

“Lord, teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1 ESV)

Christ’s Lesson on Prayer

Christ’s response may surprise us. If we’re hoping for “3 steps toward a better prayer life” or “7 essential components of prayer,” we might be disappointed. Instead of explaining with a summary of methodology, Jesus gave them an example. In fact, He was incredibly short, simple, and direct:

“And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”

Luke 11:2-4 ESV

He intended for them to use this prayer and to understand the essential components of prayer from studying the prayer itself.

Although extremely brief, this prayer holds depths in each phrase. From the very first word, “Father,” He grounds the entire prayer on the amazing relationship we have with God when we are disciples of Jesus. We could work through this prayer line by line and find ways to improve our prayer life.

The Bible’s Book of Common Prayer

Of course, Christ’s example prayer isn’t the only prayer given to us in scripture. The Bible is full of prayers that we can use to learn how to pray.

In fact, we even have an entire book dedicated to prayers: the book of Psalms. We know that psalms are songs, but as we look at each verse, we can see that many of the lines are directly addressed to God. These are prayers that are meant to be sung—inspired hymns of worship and supplication.

Deepening Your Prayer Life: Two Ways to Pray the Psalms

Praying the psalms through singing with a psalter

We are particularly blessed to live in a time of renewed interest in singing the psalms. Translating them from the Hebrew and retaining the poetry and musicality is an immense challenge, but translators and musicians are collaborating to make modern psalters, bound copies of the psalms set to music or recordings of such collections (such as the EveryPsalm project).

There are also older psalters that have been used by the church for centuries (such as the 1650 Scottish Psalter), but often modern settings are easier to sing. These can fill our homes and our minds with the words of God—scriptural prayers of worship, emotional supplication, and praise.

Paraphrasing the psalms in our own personal devotion

When we paraphrase these biblical prayers, we can put them into language that reflects our manner of speech, specific circumstances, and emotions. We can join the psalmists in our prayers to the Lord.

Because the goal is to retain the original meaning and sentiment, this requires some study and meditation. Time spent in this way provides profitable meditation and increases our understanding of the text as we apply it to our own lives.

If you are not certain how to begin paraphrasing psalm, please look at the following example to give you some ideas for how to paraphrase for yourself:

Psalm 119:1–8 (ESV)

“Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways!

You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous rules. I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me!”

Personal Paraphrase of Psalm 119:1–8

The people who are truly happy in this world are those who are walking according to His Plan, His Way, His Rules for Life. These are people who are reading His Word so they can learn and keep it, the ones who dedicate themselves to knowing Him, obeying Him, following His Path.

YOU ARE MY PERFECT COMMANDER:

You are our Leader in this spiritual battle, and You have given us Your Commands so that we will follow them. I want my life to follow Your perfect path faithfully! I want to follow Your Rules for Life. Then, I will not be ashamed about my life. Instead of looking down at myself, I will be looking up at Your Commands, at You, my Commander.

As I learn about Your perfect Rules, I will not grumble or complain or feel frustrated—I will praise Your name because You have given us everything we need for life and godliness. I will live according to Your decrees—please stay with me, My Leader.

Features of Paraphrasing

Our paraphrases will likely be longer than the original as we draw out our personal thoughts and emotions surrounding the text.

However, we should allow the text to control the direction and content of our paraphrase. The goal is not to make the text about us, but to use our own voice to pray to God with the same attitude and direction as the pattern before us.

Benefits of Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing takes time, and that creates a powerful space for us to meditate on God’s truth, apply it to our lives, and pray through it in submission to His will.

By calling out to God in the same patterns of thought as the psalmists, we can revitalize our prayer life and better understand God’s word. It also creates a record of our own personal prayers, which we can go back to again and again.

On the other hand, one paraphrase isn’t the end of the process. These lines hold such depth of meaning, one paraphrase doesn’t exhaust the content we can meditate on. We can continue to pray through the psalms each year with fresh words and deeper understanding.

The vast number of prayers given to us by God in the book of Psalms is a beautiful resource for us to delve into for the rest of our lives.

Lord, teach us to pray.