I remember when Sundays were play days, where church was a meaningless building at the end of our street, the Bible was a book I never read and prayer was something we did at meal times.

I was a child back then. I sometimes wonder how it would feel to engage with Jesus for the first time as a young adult or older. How would it feel after years of rejecting Him, coming to Him now in prayer? Would I feel that He might actually reject me because of how many times I rejected Him? Could I even expect the right to receive His favour having scorned His grace a hundred times and did everything possible to go the opposite direction He would be calling me to follow? Now, for some magical reason, I am on my knees – would that matter anymore?

What alternative is there? I know today that there is not only hope, but certainty that Jesus is willing to receive all those He has called. I am also sure that even though my mind may think that He will reject me, my heart knows He will not. I would be quite certain that if I prayed to Him, He would not refuse to hear my prayer.

Jesus is my only alternative. When I think of the leper’s response to finding food at the edge of the enemy camp, I think about what it takes to get any of us to this place of surrender and then to find the joy I was missing all along.

When the four men reached the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank what was there, grabbed the silver, gold, and clothing they found, and went off and hid them; then they returned, entered another tent, and did the same thing. – 2 Kings 7:8 GNT

In fact, even when I step away from faith, I only replace it with a form of legalism and that, in turns, turns me away from faith with more deliberation.

Everything that God has created is good; nothing is to be rejected, but everything is to be received with a prayer of thanks, because the word of God and the prayer make it acceptable to God. – 1 Timothy 4:4-5 GNT

This brings me back to prayer before a meal. It should happen but not in a ritualistic or superstitious way.

I lie defeated in the dust;
    revive me, as you have promised.
I confessed all I have done, and you answered me;
    teach me your ways.
Help me to understand your laws,
    and I will meditate on your wonderful teachings.^[a]
I am overcome by sorrow;
    strengthen me, as you have promised.
Keep me from going the wrong way,
    and in your goodness teach me your law. – Psalm 119:25-29 GNT

So what changes me – what moves me from duty to passion? I think God’s Word does. It is there that I find out what to pray for – and in this case that is for me to be revived. The idea is that I may have life and have it more abundantly. The idea is that there is really nothing physically wrong with me but rather an oppression or depression that was bearing down on me.

It is amazing though to see what happens in my soul when my passion in loving God comes across rather cool. I may be able to utter a thank you but scarcely a full prayer – hardly even a sigh.

What a joy to pray to be revived from this! I almost feel like I am so very intelligent to pray such a prayer. I am thankful for His word and for the promises therein that I believe in.

Albeit the Lord suffer his own to lie so long low in their heavy condition of spirit, that they may seem dead; yet by faith in his word he keepeth in them so much life as doth furnish unto them prayer to God for comfort: “Quicken thou me according to thy word.” – David Dickson.

The word removes deadness of conscience and hardness. Is not this word a hammer to soften the heart, and is not this the immortal seed by which we are begotten again? Therefore David, finding his conscience in a dead frame, prayed, “My soul cleaveth to the dust; quicken thou me according to thy word.” The word is the first thing by which conscience is purified and set right. John Sheffield, in “A Good Conscience the Strongest Hold,” 1650.

One way to get comfort is to plead the promise of God in prayer, “Chirographa tua injiciebat tibi Domine,” show him his handwriting; God is tender of his word. These arguments in prayer, are not to work upon God, but ourselves. – Thomas Manton

I have found confession to still be the key to getting into God’s word.

Luther’s advice on how to meditate and then how to paraphrase and personalize the Lord’s Prayer can be applied to any part of Scripture. Praying the Psalms and other parts of the Bible back to God is a very ancient and time-tested Christian practice. But seldom has it been outlined and presented in a more accessible way than Luther does here. We also have in Luther’s “A Simple Way to Pray” an implicit approval of praying prayers written for you by others. While some, like John Bunyan, were completely against using scripted prayers, Luther’s Small Catechism offers some written prayers to be prayed in families before going to work and school in the morning and going to bed at night. Calvin provided the same thing. Luther had no problem with the use of scripted prayers, as long as we internally personalized the prayer as we pray—otherwise it would be but “idle chatter and prattle.” See “Daily Prayers” in Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986), 30–32