Podcast: The Antidote to a Boring Prayer Life (Donald Whitney)

August 15, 2022 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

An Answer to the Universal Struggle with Prayer

In today's episode, Donald Whitney talks about a simple, proven approach to prayer that has the potential to transform your spiritual life for the better.

Praying the Bible

Praying the Bible

Donald S. Whitney

Offering Christians encouragement and advice for reinvigorating their prayer lives, this practical resource outlines a foolproof plan for praying through the Bible—turning the duty of prayer into delight.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | RSS

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:41 - Where Has This Been All of My Life?

Matt Tully
Don, thank you so much for joining me again on The Crossway Podcast.

Donald Whitney
I’m delighted to be here, Matt. It’s always good to see you.

Matt Tully
It is good. We’re in person right now on the campus of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and it’s fun to get to do this face to face.

Donald Whitney
It’s good to have you on my turf for a change.

Matt Tully
We’re going to talk about praying the Bible and a simple method that you’ve developed over years to help people to actually pray the words of Scripture back to God. I want to get into that in a minute, but you’ve taught this method of prayer to groups of Christians around the world for years. I wonder if you know how many times you’ve actually taught this material.

Donald Whitney
I estimated some time ago, and it’s at least six hundred times.

Matt Tully
Do you have a general sense of how many people that might represent?

Donald Whitney
No, I really don’t. I’ve taught it about two hundred times, I would estimate, in seminary classes since 1996. The thing I’m asked to do most often—and I’ve been traveling since 1996 in over 2,200 airplanes—and most of those have been events at which I’ve taught praying the Bible.

Matt Tully
I’ve heard you say many times that you believe that this simple thing about praying the Bible is the main reason God put you on the earth.

Donald Whitney
Yes, I think other than preaching the gospel—that’s the main calling of God on my life—but other than that I think teaching people to pray the Bible is why God put me on the planet.

Matt Tully
Take us back to when you first started to develop this approach. Even calling it an approach or a method almost makes it sound more complicated and sophisticated than it is, but what was the situation that led you to first start doing this?

Donald Whitney
For fifteen years I pastored just ten minutes from Crossway’s headquarters in Wheaton, Illinois. I was in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. In 1985 we had a man come to our church to teach a series of meetings Sunday morning through Wednesday night. During the weekday mornings he was doing a Bible study for those who could come, and he was going through the prayers of the apostle Paul. It was good but rather predictable stuff in the sense of you do an exposition and then say, Folks, we should pray these prayers today. At one point he held up his Bible and said, Folks, when you pray, use the prayer book. I can still see him doing that. Something just clicked and I realized the whole Bible is a prayer book, in the sense that we can not only pray the prayers of Paul in Ephesians but we pray the whole letter of Ephesians, turning all of it into prayer. Instead of just taking his prayers and making them our own, we can take the whole book of Ephesians and make it our own in prayer. That led to eventually finding the Psalms as, I think, the easiest and best place in Scripture to do this than narrative passages. Over time I discovered I was not the first one to ever do this. I just kind of backed into it—because it had not been taught to me before—and I tried it and found it meaningful. I discovered it and then learned that it was an ancient practice in the church. Then I realized it’s actually in the Bible in three or four places.

Matt Tully
What’s your theory as to why you weren’t taught it and why so many of us were never taught this approach to prayer if it does have this historical pedigree in church history and even a biblical basis?

Donald Whitney
Ultimately, the fault goes back to the pulpit. I say that as a preacher. Any low point in the church, anything we’ve lost, and anything like that is generally the fault of the pulpit. As one person put it, we’re never more than a generation away from apostasy. You can’t expect people to do what they’ve never been taught to do. You can’t expect people to be Christian financial stewards if they’ve never been taught Christian financial stewardship. You can’t expect people to practice family worship if they’ve never been taught family worship. My other book with Crossway, Family Worship, I grew up in a Bible-believing, conservative church. I went to a very conservative seminary. But it wasn’t until years after seminary that I came across the concept of family worship, and only then did I discover that throughout Christian history the church, for twenty-one centuries around the world, has understood that the Bible teaches family worship. Just like with praying the Bible I was like, Where has this been? Well, where it’s been is not in the pulpit. Things have to be taught from one generation to another. We take things for granted, but we’re always at step one with new believers and with our children. We have to teach these things. It hasn’t been taught, and virtually every time I teach it in a local church someone will come up to me and say something like, I’ve been in church all my life. Where has this been? It seems so evident and so simple once you see it.

Matt Tully
Has that ever felt discouraging to you as you’ve heard that over and over again?

Donald Whitney
In once sense, yes, because it just reveals the lack of biblical teaching that is so widespread. I feel a grief for that as a preacher. In the Old Testament it says “my people perish for lack of knowledge”—biblical teaching—and so it’s just another reflection of that, and especially on something so essential as prayer.

Matt Tully
What was it that got you into teaching this in the context of the local church and now at a seminary teaching students how to do this?

Donald Whitney
First, it was the fulfillment and satisfaction of praying this way in my own life. I wanted to share this, first of all, as a pastor. But once I had taught it in the church where I was, it was another ten years before I would be a seminary professor and traveling with any kind of consistency and having the opportunity to teach it to different groups frequently. You don’t teach the same thing to your church congregation as a local church pastor all the time.

Matt Tully
They might be asking for something new.

Donald Whitney
It might get a little bit stale. However, if we come back to it, I do think it’s something that you can model in your pastoral prayers and be sort of constantly teaching new people who come and reminding your people who have heard it before by example. You need to find a way as a pastor, once you’ve taught something, to have an ongoing teaching about it. We don’t want to just forget something that we’ve taught that’s really significant. That’s when I would begin traveling, teaching it in seminary in my classes every semester, teaching it in local churches about every three or four weeks. That’s when I began to have to opportunity to share it more frequently.

08:20 - What Is Praying the Bible?

Matt Tully
Give us the two-minute elevator pitch for praying the Bible. How would you explain that to someone who says, I don’t know what you mean. That sounds interesting to me. I’m struggling in my prayer life. Help me.

Donald Whitney
I think there is an almost universal struggle that looks like this: When people do pray, they tend to say the same old things about the same old things. To pray about the same old things is not the problem. Our lives tend to consist pretty much of the same old things—your family, your future, your finances, your work or schoolwork, your church or ministry, or the current crisis in your life. There’s almost nothing in your life that doesn’t relate to one of those six things. If daily you’re going to pray about your life, you tend to pray about the same old things. That’s not a problem; that’s normal. The problem comes when we say the same old things about the same old things. That can pretty quickly become boring. That leads to your mind wandering constantly in prayer. It’s very difficult for words without variety not to become words without meaning. A simple, permanent, biblical solution to that is to pray the Bible. By that I mean you go through a passage of Scripture, particularly a psalm, and you just turn those words into the words of your prayer. In the twenty-third psalm, which is so familiar and that’s why I usually use that as my first illustration, you read “The Lord is my shepherd.” You say something like this, Lord, I thank you that you are my shepherd. You’re a good shepherd. You’ve shepherded me all of my life. Would you shepherd me in this decision I have to make about my future? Show me your will. Lord, would you shepherd my family. Cause them to be your sheep too. May they love you as their shepherd as I love you as my shepherd. Would you shepherd our under shepherds at the church. Shepherd them as they shepherd us. Basically, pray whatever comes to mind when you read “The Lord is my shepherd.” Then, when nothing else comes to mind, you go to the next line—“I shall not want.” You pray what that prompts. It is praying whatever is prompted by the text, or often it’s just using the vocabulary of the text to wrap that around what’s on your heart to pray about. If you come to a verse you don’t understand, then skip it. If you come to a verse and you understand it perfectly but it just doesn’t prompt anything to pray about, fine. Skip it and go to the next one. That method can expand or contract to however much or however little time you have. If you’ve got four hours, you just keep turning the page. You never run out of anything to say, and—ack to where we started—you don’t repeat yourself. When you pray the Bible, you never again say the same old things about the same old things.

Matt Tully
Is that repetition the problem that you think is at the core of why you think so many of us struggle to pray so often?

Donald Whitney
I think it is. It tends to be boring. It’s not always boring, but I’ve met a very small handful of people who say the same things everyday and say, It’s not boring to me. So I understand there’s that group of people, but nearly everyone else tells me that it becomes boring and their minds wander because of that. Words without variety become words without meaning. You don’t need any notes to remember this. You don’t need any other resources. You just open your Bible and talk to God about what you see there. That’s why people say, Why have I not heard this before? This is so profoundly simple! You just pray about what’s in the text. You’ll pray about the same old things because that’s your life, but you won’t pray the same old things about them. Instead of saying, Bless my family I’ll say, Shepherd my family. Make them your sheep (Ps. 23). That biblical imagery just transforms that. My love for my family puts the feeling back into it, if you will, when it’s expressed in new words. Otherwise, you can be praying to the most fascinating person in the universe about the most important things in your life, but be bored to death if you say the same old things. But if you say fresh things about the things that are most important to you, it energizes your prayer life.

Matt Tully
I’m struck that it’s not merely about the fresh words—saying something like Shepherd my family vs. Bless my family—but it does sort of take on a new, richer meaning, and it helps to engage my affections more.

Donald Whitney
Yes, and I do think just having fresh words is helpful. But there’s a difference because when we’re praying the Bible, these aren’t merely different words than I prayed yesterday; these are inspired words. There’s a supernatural quality to these words. Jesus said, “The words I speak to you are Spirit; they are life.” These are the words we are using, not merely different words than yesterday.

13:24 - Praying the Genres of Scripture

Matt Tully
I think many of us, if we’ve ever prayed Scripture and even if we haven’t thought of it this way as a method that we want to use consistently, the Psalms probably are the place where we’ve maybe done that a little bit. Help us understand what it’s like to pray the words of Scripture from a different part of the Bible that is maybe a little less obvious.

Donald Whitney
I think the next easiest place rather than the Psalms is in the New Testament letters. I think that’s the case because with many of the psalms, so often the very words of the psalmist are your own very words. When the psalmist says, “How long, O Lord, will I cry and you will not hear?”—sometimes that’s exactly what you want to say. You don’t modify anything. But in the New Testament letters there’s sort of a transition that often happens. Normally, I will take people to a passage they don’t know very well because I don’t want to just cherrypick well-known passages like Psalm 23, but I am going to do it right here in this case for an illustration. If I read Romans 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purposes”—if I’m going to pray through that, I’m going to be praying something like, Lord, I believe this. I don’t see any good in me getting this diagnosis. I don’t see any good at what happened to me yesterday. I don’t see any good that’s happening at my work. But I trust you because I love you and I’m called according to your purposes. You are working this out for my ultimate good and your glory somehow. You see there’s a little bit of translation that takes place there, but I’m still taking the teaching, words, theology, and vocabulary of that verse and using that to direct my prayers.

Matt Tully
You make a point in the book, and I’ve heard you say this in person as well, not to be too worried about what these passages might prompt. You give a funny example in the book where if I read the work “mark” in Scripture (“God, you do not mark our iniquities”) and you think of your friend named Mark, then you should pray for him. Let that prompt that prayer. I think for a lot of people they would say, That sounds like we’re misusing the Bible in that case. That’s not allowed. But you would say that’s allowed?

Donald Whitney
Yes. I’m very keen on the idea of interpreting the Scriptures properly. We have a required class at seminary—it’s one of the most important classes—and it’s called hermeneutics. It’s on interpreting the Scripture correctly. We never have the right to read anything into the meaning of the text or to impress our meaning on it. You may have heard the term in church before called eisigesis—reading into the text what you want.

Matt Tully
Versus exegesis.

Donald Whitney
Right, which is digging out the meaning God has already put there. In just about every other kind of coming to the Bible I can think of—reading it devotionally, reading it to interpret it to teach to others—our first responsibility is what do the words actually say, and what do those words? Only then do we apply them. But that’s not the way I’m coming to the Bible in this case, because my primary activity is not Bible study; it’s prayer. I’m primarily praying, but I’m glancing at the text during my prayers. If the text prompts me to pray about something, it’s legitimate because the Bible teaches us to pray about everything. Everything that comes to mind when I’m reading the Bible is something I ought to pray about anyway, even if it has nothing to do with the text. I’m not encouraging people to look for some weird, outlandish meaning—What’s the craziest thing that I could possibly relate to this text? I’m just saying that if that happens, it’s okay to pray about that thing.

Matt Tully
Don’t let that throw you off and think you’re making a mistake here.

Donald Whitney
Here’s why that’s important: I’ve pastored a lot of people who grew up in a tradition where they were told, You’ve not been to seminary, you’re not trained, so just don’t spend a lot of time in the Bible. You might misunderstand. You might get something wrong. I’ve actually pastored people who love God but were almost afraid to get into the Bible, afraid they would misinterpret something and somehow mess something up. No. We want people in the Bible as much as possible. I encourage them pastorally in this regard. Whatever comes to mind, talk to God about it. I have enough confidence in the word and in the Spirit that if they’ll pray like this (verse by verse), what will come to mind most of the time is going to be pretty close to what the text is about.

Matt Tully
That’s what I was going to say is I’ve heard you make the case that over time what you’ve observed with people is that praying through the Bible, and not being overly concerned about getting into the hermeneutics every time, that does have an effect of helping people to actually be more biblical in how they’re thinking.

Donald Whitney
Exactly. If people don’t use the Bible, I guarantee you they’re going to pray amiss. Praying without the Bible tends to be very problematic quite often. But if they’re praying the Bible, the words of their prayers are increasingly shaped by the words of the Scripture, by the theology of the Scripture. That leads them to pray more faithfully and understand the Scriptures more accurately. What better way to learn the true meaning of the text if you don’t have any other helps—it’s just you and your Bible—what better way to learn than to pray through it verse by verse, asking the author of the text to help you understand it?

19:03 - Is There a Wrong Way to Pray the Bible?

Matt Tully
Is there a wrong way to pray the Bible?

Donald Whitney
Yes. A person can take a passage like a promise, especially maybe about prosperity, and turn that into a very selfish prayer that’s almost devoid of God and pleasing God and obeying God, and can become very self-centered with it. But the same can be true with just trying to interpret the Bible. We’re sinful creatures; we can mess up anything. There’s no fool-proof way to do anything with the Bible or the Christian life. But remember, our emphasis is on prayer. We’re not here primarily talking about correct exegesis. Although I’m fully for that, I can’t think of any way to ensure more biblically faithful prayers than to pray the Bible line by line.

Matt Tully
That might be a caution, that as you’re praying the Bible, don’t confuse that with careful study. If you have an experience that you feel like was positive and encouraging and uplifting spiritually with the Bible, don’t think that means it’s valid, whatever you interpreted it to mean.

Donald Whitney
Yes. Once again, we never have a right to misuse the Bible, and our experience is not the final judge of it. The Bible is the evaluator of our experience. But I just don’t want people to be afraid to pray the Bible because they are afraid they don’t understand the Bible very well.

20:35 - Top Questions about Praying the Bible

Matt Tully
What would you say are the top two or three questions that you get asked after you teach a session on this?

Donald Whitney
One question I get is, What about the model prayer? Jesus says, “When you pray, say . . . .” It’s in the Gospels twice. In one case I think he’s legitimizing the use of the prayer verbatim—saying that prayer word for word. But in the other case it’s a little more clear that it’s to be a model prayer—an example of the elements that should be in our prayer lives. We know that’s how the apostles took it because there are other prayers in the New Testament after this, and none of them merely repeats the model prayer. I often use it, and Luther has a famous treatise on this about turning the Lord’s Prayer (phrase by phrase) into a launching place for our prayers. But if a person will pray the Bible consistently, they will consistently pray all the elements in the model prayer. Maybe not everyday. For example, Psalm 150 is primarily about praise. Psalm 51 is primarily about confession. If you daily pray through passages of Scripture, you’re going to be consistently praying through all the elements of the model prayer that Jesus gave us.

Matt Tully
What do you think about another famous model for prayer that is often shared and promoted in evangelical contexts—the ACTS model (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication). Have you tried things like that, and how would you say they compare to what we’re talking about today—praying the words of the Bible itself?

Donald Whitney
That was going to be the second common question I get—the ACTS acrostic. That is fine as far as it goes. The problem is, that becomes the same old thing. People say, A—adoration. Begin your prayer with adoration. How am I going to adore the Lord today? Well, I guess I’ll adore him the same way I did yesterday because I can’t think of new ways to adore the Lord. I’m too tired. I don’t have the time. That tends to become the same old things. Good news: you don’t have to think of new ways to adore the Lord. He’s given us one hundred and fifty chapters in the middle of the Bible on how he wants to be adored in the book of Psalms. Even if a person were to say, I agree that I don’t want to say the same old things about the same old things, but I don’t know about this praying the Bible method. I’ll just have variety everyday myself. Today they adore the Lord this way, but tomorrow how are they going to adore the Lord? You can’t do it the same way you did yesterday because you’ve got to be fresh. Two days from now you’ve got to come up with another way. You’re going to do this 365 times this year? I don’t think so. Who’s got the time? Who’s got the creative energy to do that? Furthermore, we know that the praise and adoration in the Bible is acceptable to God. He inspired that. Just open your Bible and talk to God about what he’s inspired there and what you find. It’s just so easy!

23:48 - CanYou Pray through the Book of Leviticus?

Matt Tully
Let me pick an example from the Bible that might be the hardest that someone could think of. A Christian might be thinking, Okay, but what about the book of Leviticus? How would you pray through the book of Leviticus?

Donald Whitney
This is going to take some biblical knowledge that a lot of people won’t have. Let me quickly say that once you’ve learned how to do this and as your knowledge of the Bible grow, you can pray through any part of the Bible.

Matt Tully
So you would firmly say yes, you can do this in any part of Scripture?

Donald Whitney
Even the genealogies. You can pray anything from the Bible if you have the biblical knowledge to do so. Most people are going to find it simpler to do it in the more devotional passages like the psalms, the New Testament letters, and so forth. I almost always use the psalms myself. I’ve been doing this for almost forty years, and I still use the psalms almost everyday. Yes, you can pray through any part of the Bible, but with Leviticus for example, you have to know something about symbolism, how these kinds of things point to Christ, how they’re fulfilled in Christ—which means you have to know your New Testament a little bit. If nothing else, your prayer can be, Lord, show me how this relates. Give me insight. But yes, there are passages that are intended for different purposes—different genres of Scripture. Those kinds of passages aren’t so much about devotional instruction as they are about a more doctrinal basis for things that are going to come later.

Matt Tully
Or even the history of Israel where we see God’s plan is unfolded there.

Donald Whitney
Exactly. Let’s go back to the genealogies just to show the universality if you will meditate on how to do that. You read nine chapters in 1 Chronicles of genealogies. Maybe you can thank God for your spiritual heritage. My parents were believers. I’m thankful to the Lord for being raised in a Christian home and what a difference that made. I was taken to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night nine months before I was born. Reflecting on all of these things is something to be grateful to God about. I can pray for my children, grandchildren, and generations to come that I will never see. Lord, may what I do have an impact for a thousand generations. To see all of these unique names of people that have been long forgotten, but God knows every individual. He knows every person to ever live. He knows their names. There are a number of things you can say that the genealogies can prompt.

Matt Tully
It’s interesting hearing you talk and just hearing your own thought process through that. You’ve made the point that praying the Bible is very simple. It’s easy for us to do and get started with, but would you say that you can still get better at it with practice over time?

Donald Whitney
Absolutely. The psalms, as I said, are so easy because often the very words of the psalms are the very words you want to pray. Often you don’t discover that until you kind of scan a psalm or two: Oh, look at that. That’s where I am today. I didn’t realize it until I read those words, but that’s what I want to pray today. That’s so easy, but then you learn to ask, How can I do this in passages where I’m going to have to think a minute? Is this something I can thank God for, or something I can ask? I’m still looking at passages and I have to pause and say, How would I pray about this passage?

27:28 - The Psalms of the Day Prayer Guide

Matt Tully
You’ve mentioned the psalms a number of times and said that you start there oftentimes when you teach this. In the book you actually have a section where you offer a psalm a day prayer guide. Can you walk us through what that is and how you use that in your own life?

Donald Whitney
It’s something called “The Psalms of the Day.” It’s not original with me, but it’s based upon the idea that we have one hundred and fifty psalms and that there are generally thirty days in a month, so that divides out five times. To put it another way, if on the first of the month you read five psalms, on the second of the month you read five different psalms, and on the third of the month you read five different psalms, at the end of thirty days you would have read all one hundred and fifty psalms. That’s a great practice. I know people who do that. I’m told Billy Graham used to do that. That’s not really what I advocate, though I’m all for that. But when it comes to praying the Bible, what I suggest is that you take five of those psalms, quickly scan them in thirty seconds, and pick one to pray through. What this avoids—and as I’m about to get into a brief mathematical explanation here, people say, I hate math! I’m not going to introduce math into my prayer life!—what this helps avoid is just thumbing through your Bible, looking for a psalm that you like. You look at one and say, Nah. I don’t like that one. Nah, I did that one two days ago.

Matt Tully
You can end up spending fifteen minutes just trying to find a psalm.

Donald Whitney
You’re losing momentum, right? And we all need all the help we can get in our devotional life. We don’t need any friction, so this helps avoid that. The reason it’s called “The Psalms of the Day” is the hardest part of this is figuring out what day it is. Maybe even looking at your watch and your phone you can say, Okay, today’s the 20th of the month. The 20th psalm is the first one you look at. What’s the day of the month? That’s the first psalm. Then, you add thirty to get the next one. Why thirty? There are thirty days in the month. If you add thirty and twenty, it gives me fifty. That’s my second psalm. Psalm 20 is my first one. Add thirty to get fifty, and then just keep adding thirty until you’re up to five psalms. Thirty more is Psalm 80, thirty more is Psalm 110, thirty more is Psalm 140. So, on the twentieth of the month—it doesn’t matter what month it is, whether it’s the twentieth of May, June, or July—

Matt Tully
It’s just the day of the month.

Donald Whitney
The day of the month. On the twentieth of the month, the psalms of the day are always Psalms 20, 50, 80, 110, 140. Take thirty seconds to quickly scan, and, Matt, it’s uncanny how one of them will just jump off the page. You’ll say, That’s exactly where I am right now!

Matt Tully
So you don’t even need a sheet. You do provide a sheet and that’s a helpful tool, I suppose, but you’re saying you don’t even need that. You can just kind of quickly do it in your head and figure out what psalms to look at.

Donald Whitney
There’s an appendix in the back of the book and it has a little chart in there. There’s actually a free app out there and it’s called “Five Psalms” that automatically does this for you. I just find it extremely helpful. The other benefit is it systematically takes me through all one hundred and fifty psalms. They’re all equally inspired; they’re not all equally easy to pray through. They’re all equally inspired and equally worthy of prayer, so I want to be exposed to them all. Otherwise, I tend to come to my favorites all the time and perpetually overlook others.

31:05 - Tips for Teaching Others to Pray the Bible

Matt Tully
That’s so helpful. Maybe as a final question, speak to the pastor, small group leader, Bible study leader. What are some tips that you would offer them if they wanted to try to lead a group through this and help them to understand and catch a vision for praying the Bible?

Donald Whitney
Frankly, the first thing I would do is say get the book Praying the Bible because that has all my notes. When I teach on this—and I’ve done so, again, approximately 600 times—I’ll usually do this (if it’s in a local church setting) in about two hours or so. Everything I say is in that book. So that’s the first thing. Second, there’s a leader’s guide that they can get at crossway.org.

Matt Tully
We’ll put a link in the show notes so you can download that directly right here.

Donald Whitney
Great. That has a lot of how-to instruction. That gives a four- to six-session plan on teaching this in your local church step by step. But the most important thing I would say is that when someone is teaching this, whether they have two hours or five minutes, give the people a chance to try it right then, as soon as you’ve taught them. I’ve shown what it is, now here is what it looks like in Psalm 23 or in a New Testament letter. Here’s what it looks like. Now, I want you to try it. Pick a psalm. It doesn’t have to be one of the psalms of the day. Just pack a psalm, and I’m going to give you some time. I usually do seven minutes to give people a chance.

Matt Tully
So not a lot of time.

Donald Whitney
It’s not a lot of time because, frankly, in their daily prayer life, it might be embarrassing to ask, When’s the last time you spent seven unbroken minutes? I’m also constricted by the amount of time in the local church setting. Two hours is a long time to ask people to sit nowadays, so seven minutes—with everything else I try to do—is about as much time as I can fit in. It’s reasonable. I give them a chance to actually try it for seven minutes. Then, after that I say, How did it go? We have some feedback and I teach in response to their feedback. I said all of that to say the most important piece of advice I could give to people who are teaching it is give the people a chance to try it right then. As soon as they’ve taught them, say, Now you’re going to try this. Pick a psalm. I’m going to give you seven minutes. Go. If you don’t do that, my experience is people walk out knitting their brow, pursing their lips, saying, That’s a good idea. That’s a real good idea. I’ll have to try that someday—and they never do. But if you’ll have them try it right then, I’ve seen countless lives instantly, permanently transformed before my very eyes. They see how easy it is. I’ve seen many people weep, Where has this been all my life? Why haven’t I been taught this? I felt like I was actually talking with God! Matt, that’s what prayer actually is, isn’t it? It’s a real conversation with a real person, but you experience prayer as a real conversation with a real person when you pray the Bible.

Matt Tully
Have there been moments in your life—in the decades since you started doing this—where you feel like you’ve come to a fresh realization that you maybe forgot for a season how significant this is, and through praying the Bible you’ve kind of been reawakened to it?

Donald Whitney
Yes, but I think that’s true with all spiritual disciplines that relate to the word. Sometimes meditation on Scripture is kind of dry, and then other times you’re afraid to open your eyes and afraid that God will be standing right before you. We have those seasons. Puritans refer to them as spiritual dryness, or spiritual desertions. Sometimes the spiritual disciplines, even prayer and the intake of the word, are like medicine—you do it because you know you need it, it’s good for you, and you don’t have any feelings associated with it. Other times it’s like dessert and you enjoy it so much. There are those seasons which I think are normal in all Christian lives where prayer is tough, even using praying the Bible. But I’ve done this long enough to know that even in those dry times, it’s not going to get better by not praying the Bible. If I’m going to experience God, it’s going to be through his word. That’s the most predictable place. He meets me spontaneously and in unexpected ways and unexpected places, but the most regular places we can expect to meet him are in the means he has given us, through which he reveals himself, and that is his word, praying his word, and encounters with his word.

Matt Tully
Don, thank you so much for helping us to maybe discover for the first time something that is really old and really established, but is also so fresh and encouraging.

Donald Whitney
I enjoyed it, Matt. I always enjoy talking about praying the Bible. It still gets me excited after hundreds of times. It’s always good to see you, and thank you for the opportunity.

Popular Articles in This Series

View All

Podcast: Help! I Hate My Job (Jim Hamilton)

January 06, 2020

Jim Hamilton discusses what to do when you hate your job, offering encouragement for those frustrated in their work and explaining the difference between a job and a vocation.

Crossway is a not-for-profit Christian ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the gospel through publishing gospel-centered, Bible-centered content. Learn more or donate today at crossway.org/about.