Encouragement in Prayer
A new year is upon us already, and already many have made and broken plenty of resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, be more patient or kind, etc. etc.. Many believers have likely struggled to gain momentum in private devotional reading, Bible reading plans, or family worship. As a Pastor I’m often asked for recommendations of a daily devotional that is both “deep and brief”. I usually, with a smile, reply “which is it? Would you rather have the depth or the brevity?” But I realize many brothers and sisters in Christ are truly wanting to grow in their walk with the Lord and find help that is accessible. Over the past year I’ve begun recommending a resource I have greatly benefited from in my own private and family worship: Gordon Keddie’s “Prayers of the Bible". Here’s why I am so encouraged by this work:
The Method
This devotional consisting of 365 meditations are written from a pastor’s mind and heart. In the introduction, Pastor Keddie reveals that this resource is the fruit of 10 years of teaching and ministering in midweek prayer meetings at his congregation in Indiana. They are crafted to “prime the pump” and drive us to the throne of grace in prayer. These are not produced by random inspiration or to simply encourage a few minutes of positive thinking about God and our lives before we move on to our daily tasks. The doctrine here is intently doxological. Keddie begins each day with a substantive reading of God’s word, with pastoral meditation and exegesis that is organized to help the reading understand and make application from the text. He also ends each day with the recommendation of a Psalm to sing and list of items for prayer. As Richard Phillips writes in commending this book from the forward, “Here, a seasoned and zealous pastor records for us a lifetime of reflections on this most valued topic, offering encouraged and guides to the practice of prayer.” And yet the reading is not toilsome or long. The balance and variety of texts employed helps break up the pace. My 11 year old son enjoys reading them when we have used it as an aide in family worship. Pastor Keddie shows us how to pray by teaching us what prayer is and how God’s people modeled prayer in Scripture.
The Message
Prayers of the Bible is saturated with solid substance that encourages daily prayer as a means of grace (Westminster Larger Catechism 195). As I’ve heard repeated many times, “if you want to humble a person, ask them about their prayer life.” In a world that is constantly distracted and dominated by “the tyranny of the urgent” we need profound and faithful teaching on the necessity and benefit of regular prayer. The Apostle Paul commands the church in Thessalonica to “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances”. (1 Thess. 5:16-18a) As believers we know THAT we ought to pray, but HOW and WHAT does biblical prayer look like? Many of these meditations are taken directly from the prayers recorded in Scripture that enlighten and explain the who, what, when, how, and why of prayer. Keddie writes, “When Scripture tells us ‘you do not have, because you do not ask (James 4:2) God is telling us he has the answer already in place. All we need is faith and prayer….God is an excellent listener. He is a perfect father. He continues to listen, even when he knows what is coming. When we know what is coming we tend to switch off. What grace there is in the Lord, to let us babble on to the limit of our anxieties, and, as he listens, to time the answer that will console the troubled heart and meet the greatest need of the hour!” (p. 8-9) The truths contained in each devotion exemplify the best of faithful Reformed practical theology.
A new year is always a great time for a new start. But so too is every day. With God's mercies new every morning, may we all continue to renew ourselves to boldly approach the throne of grace through prayer. I heartily recommend using Gordon Keddie’s “Prayers of the Bible” to refresh and aid you in this great spiritual discipline.