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¹⁴⁵ With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O Lord!
    I will keep your statutes.
¹⁴⁶ I call to you; save me,
    that I may observe your testimonies.
¹⁴⁷ I rise before dawn and cry for help;
    I hope in your words.
¹⁴⁸ My eyes are awake before the watches of the night,
    that I may meditate on your promise.
¹⁴⁹ Hear my voice according to your steadfast love;
    O Lord, according to your justice give me life.
¹⁵⁰ They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose;
    they are far from your law.
¹⁵¹ But you are near, O Lord,
    and all your commandments are true.
¹⁵² Long have I known from your testimonies
    that you have founded them forever.

We cannot separate reading the Bible from praying to the Lord. God speaks, and we respond by speaking back. We come to the Lord in his word, and as we come we ask him to speak to us, and that we may understand and obey. 

This whole Psalm underlines that there is a link between the two. It is a Psalm about God’s word, and yet it is expressed as one long prayer to the Lord. It is not simply an essay from the Psalmist to us. 

This section is a cry to the Lord. But how do we pray when we read the Bible? We may think the answer is obvious, but it’s striking that the disciples didn’t know how to pray. They asked Jesus to teach them. We need to learn - and the Psalmist can teach us.

He shows us what the essence of true prayer is. It is bringing back the promises of the Lord to the Lord. There is enough in God’s word to keep us praying for a lifetime. There are enough commands that we can cry to the Lord that he will enable us to keep (verse 145, 146). There are enough promises the Lord has made that we can cry out to him that he will do (verses 147 and 148). The Psalmist burns the candle at both ends praying! There is enough injustice in the world that we can cry out to the Lord to sort out (verse 149-151).

There are many things that the Lord has not promised us. He has not promised health and wealth - he often grows us through difficulties. He has not promised exactly what will happen tomorrow. But he has promised us what we need, and he has promised that “his kingdom will come and his will will be done on earth as in heaven”. 

If God already knows why pray? That’s not Christian logic. Our Father wants us to express our faith by praying. And he so rules our world that somehow he has built the fact that his people pray into the way he rules and answers. So let God’s word be the fuel for your prayers. 

One tip - take a passage of scripture, perhaps a Psalm, and pray it back to the Lord. See how that changes your relationship with the word, and your relationship with the Lord himself.