Best of all, when you pray the Bible, you never again say the same old things about the same old things. And you don’t have to think of new things to say or different things to pray about. You’ll pray about the things you do want to pray about daily, but you’ll do so in new ways. Instead of saying, “Bless my family” every day, you’ll pray, “Shepherd my family” when you pray through Psalm 23.

I have learned to . . . season my prayers with the word of God. It’s a way of talking to God in his language — speaking his dialect, using his vernacular, employing his idioms.

—Joni Eareckson Tada

When the Holy Spirit indwells us, he causes us to cry, “Abba. Father!” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). The Spirit creates in all believers a new heavenward, Fatherward orientation. In other words, all those indwelled by the Spirit really want to pray.

Eventually, though, most believers fall into varying sorts of routines in their prayers. This is quite normal, but there are both helpful and unhelpful prayer routines.

The Problem: Dry Prayers

One of the most common and problematic prayer habits is the tendency to say the same old things about the same old things. For many, this results in boredom in prayer. Words without variety tend to become words without meaning. Jesus himself warned about the problem of heaping up “empty phrases” in prayer (Matthew 6:7). When we do, we usually suffer from wandering minds and cold hearts more than benefit from communion with God.

The problem is not that we pray about the same old things. Most days are dominated by thoughts about the same things — family, future, finances, work or schoolwork or other daily labor, church or ministry, and the current crisis in our lives (such crises can be good, such as a new job, or bad, such as job trouble). Thankfully, most of these don’t change very often.

So, on a given day, when you go to pray about your life, it’s not unusual to pray about the routine matters that make up everyday life. The problem consists in saying the same old things about the same old things. Before long, these prayers can formalize into merely memorized mental scripts that produce a heartless, unsatisfying prayer life. We know prayer shouldn’t be a dry repetition of routine phrases, but either we don’t have the time or mental energy to think of new ways to pray, or we simply have no idea what to do about the problem.

Personally, I’m convinced this is an almost universal experience. But take heart: if you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, there is a simple, permanent, biblical solution.

Simple Solution

Since the Holy Spirit makes every believer a praying person, then prayer must be both simple and meaningful. God’s people span all ages, educational levels, mental capacities, and degrees of Christian maturity. And yet, if each of us is to pray, then prayer must be fundamentally simple. And could any believer think that God intends prayer to be boring? Of course not. Prayer, since it is talking with God himself, should be deeply meaningful.

So, I hope you are convinced that every Christian — including you — can have a nourishing, satisfying prayer life. And I want you to believe there really is a simple, permanent, biblical solution. And here it is: When you pray, pray the Bible. Turn the words of Scripture into the words of your prayers.

Your Prayers in God’s Words

The easiest place to begin is in the Psalms. So let me show you what it might look like to pray through Psalm 23. You read the first line: “The Lord is my shepherd.” Then you could pray something like this:

Lord, I thank you that you are my shepherd. You’re a good shepherd and have shepherded me all my life.

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