Reading, Meditating and Praying with God’s Word

For many of us, we tend to separate reading the Bible from praying. That is, we read the Bible and close the book, then pray about things we need that are not necessarily linked to the reading we just did. Our prayer tends to be repetitive, going through a laundry list of things we need from God. We get bored with prayer and we don’t feel close to God. 

What needs to happen in our devotional life is connecting our reading of Scripture and praying, so that God’s word and our words are connected. That’s how our relationship with God grows and deepens: God speaks; we listen. Then we speak based on what we hear from God’s word. If you think about it, it’s a no-brainer. That’s how any good relationship is built and fostered. Listening and speaking and hearing each other’s hearts and knowing each other intimately through a meaningful connection. So in our devotional life, we should bring together word and prayer. What God has put together, let no one separate!

So how do we then connect our reading of God’s word and praying to God in response to his word? The process is rather simple, though it can be really life-changing! It’s reading—meditating—praying.  The important link between reading and praying is meditation. Donald Whitney calls meditation, “the missing link between Bible intake and prayer” for many people.

So this is how the “reading—meditating—praying” gets integrated into our devotional life, and how meditation plays a significant role in fostering deeper intimacy with God:

After the input of a passage of Scripture, meditation allows us to take what God has said and think deeply on it, digest it, and then speak to God about it in meaning prayer. As a result, we pray about what we’ve encountered in the Bible, now personalized through meditation. And not only do we have something substantial to say in prayer, as well as the confidence that we are praying God’s thoughts to Him, but we transition smoothly into prayer and with more passion for what we’re praying about.

When enlivened by meditation, prayer becomes more like a real conversation with a real person—which is exactly what prayer is. God speaks to us in his Word, and we speak to Him in response to what He has said. Then, when we’ve finished, we listen to the other person speak again—just like in a real conversation—meaning that we look to the next words God has spoken in his Word. And so the process continues, each part guided by the ever-fresh words of Scripture and without the repetition of worn phrases from previous prayers, until we must close that time of prayer. [1]

William Bridge calls meditation as “the sister of reading” and “the mother of prayer.” He asserts, “Though a person’s heart be much indisposed to prayer, yet, if he can but fall into a meditation of God, and the things of God, his heart will soon come off to prayer.” And he suggests: “Begin with reading or hearing. Go on with meditation; end in prayer…. Reading without meditation is unfruitful; meditation without reading is hurtful; to meditate and to read without prayer upon both, is without blessing.”

So that’s what we will do when we meet in the morning and in the evening to pray together: we will read the passage of the day (New Testament in the morning; Old Testament in the evening). Then we will spend time meditating on the passage and pray on our own for 10-15 minutes. And then we will close our time together by having a few of us pray in response to God’s word and in conjunction with our meditation.

When we do that together daily as a church, we will have grown as women and men of God’s word and people of prayer. We will have built intimacy with God and spiritual intimacy with one another. 

So brothers and sisters, let’s read, meditate and pray with God’s word. And let’s do it together, just as the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, fellowship… and prayer” (Acts 2:42).

[1] Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 87.