Praying with God’s Promises

Sometimes, when we pray, we struggle with what we should be saying in our prayers. I recently came across two passages in the Bible that reminded me of something that I, and we, should be doing when we pray but oftentimes neglect to do. We should be using God’s own words, His promises to us, in our prayers.

In Genesis 32, Jacob is on his way back to his homeland. He sends a messenger ahead of himself to let Esau know that he is on his way back and to try gauge how Esau might react to his arrival. Jacob, rightly so, is afraid of Esau because he stole Esau’s birthright. When the messenger returns, he tells Jacob that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men. Jacob immediately fears that Esau is coming to attack him. In this moment, as any one of us would do, he prays. We can learn something from the prayer that he makes. In Genesis 32:9-12, Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, 'Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you': I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with the children. For You said, 'I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.'"

Jacob’s prayer is significant because of the words that he chose to use. He did not rely solely on his own words. He used the word of God. He started his prayer by reciting what God had said to him in Genesis 31:3, “Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.” Furthermore, he ended his prayer by remembering what God had promised him in Genesis 28:14-15, when he had left his homeland. God promised, “Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you."

I noticed that Moses did the same thing in Exodus 32:13. Moses prays to God to have mercy on the Israelites because they have built a golden calf to worship. In his prayer, Moses points back to God’s promise stating, “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” Just like Jacob had done, Moses recites God’s own words in his prayer.

We would all benefit from following Jacob and Moses’ example. As I wrote about in my first blog post, God’s Covenant with Abraham, we can count on God to fulfill his promises because of who He is. Therefore, if God has promised us something, we can be secure in its fulfillment; we just need to ask. What better way to pray, and to be sure in the fulfillment of our requests, then to use God’s own words?

God’s word is powerful. It brought forth light, separated water from land, commanded the land to bring forth vegetation, placed the stars in the sky, produced sea and land creatures, and fashioned mankind. No one else who can do what our God did with His words. Our God created something so majestic that millions of scientists devote their lives to just studying one aspect of that creation. When have we, with our own words, created anything worthy of such awe and scrutiny?

Lucky for us, our words don’t have to be eloquent nor powerful. We have a wonderful God who has given us His word in written form. We need only to devote His word to memory. That way, whenever we pray, we can use His words and trust in the power of His words to see our petition answered.

Here, I have linked a page that lists several of God’s promises. I encourage you to begin memorizing His word.