Lord, Teach us to Pray!

We were made to worship and pray — but that doesn’t mean it comes naturally.

There’s a common assumption that prayer should be instinctive. If your heart is full enough (or desperate enough), it will simply overflow into prayer. And if it doesn’t, there’s no way to learn and grow in it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian, called this out as a dangerous error — one still very much alive today (more than 80 years after he finished writing those lines):

“Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one’s heart. It means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one’s own.”
D. Bonhoeffer, The Prayerbook of the Bible

This is why, in Luke 11:1, Jesus’ disciples didn’t say “we don’t feel like praying.” They said: “Lord, teach us to pray.” They knew they needed a guide. And if we want to know how Jesus prayed, there’s one place to look: the Psalms.

The Prayer Book of God’s People

The Psalms are not just ancient poetry. They are the prayer book of Israel and the Church — words prayed faithfully for thousands of years. More than that, they were Jesus’ own prayers. He is the only one who ever prayed them in full truth and faithfulness.

That changes how we read them. They’re not just a resource we pick up; they’re words we learn to inhabit in him.

Bonhoeffer said, speaking of the Psalm, that:

“Jesus Christ has brought before God every need, every joy, every thanksgiving, and every hope of humankind. Only in and with Jesus Christ can we truly pray.”
D. Bonhoeffer, The Prayerbook of the Bible

The Psalms slow us down. They shift our perspective. They call us out of life’s noise and into God’s Word. And they expand our prayers far beyond our own immediate concerns.

Psalm 96 is a brilliant teacher. It gives us three movements that can reshape our prayer life.

Pray with Confidence — God is Lord of the Heavens

Psalm 96 opens with a sweeping invitation: “Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth.” The whole earth is called to declare the glory of God and his salvation, day after day.

The foundation of this bold call is simple: God made the heavens. In the ancient world, the heavens were literally unreachable — the realm of gods, of forces beyond human control. But for Israel, the heavens belonged to the one true God. Every rival god, every idol, every power that commands our loyalty is worthless, empty, non-entities.

This is still true. Whether we’re drawn toward consumerism, achievement, comfort, or status — these are the little gods that shape our hearts. But our hearts were made for more. As Augustine put it, they are restless until they rest in God (St-Augustin, Confessions).

And if God is sovereign over the heavens — over everything beyond our reach and control — then our prayers can be big. We can bring our needs, our families, our fears. But Christian prayer doesn’t stop there. We pray knowing that God’s Kingdom is coming, no matter what. His purposes hold.

On the eve of D-Day in 1944, King George VI addressed his nation with the words of Psalm 29, verse 11: “We shall ask not that God may do our will, but that we may be enabled to do the will of God.”

Confident prayer isn’t about certainty in outcomes. It’s about certainty in God’s character and his promises. And in Christ, all of God’s promises are — as Paul writes — “Yes and Amen” (1 Corinthians 1:20).

For your prayer life: Let the Psalms teach you to approach God boldly. Praise him for who he is before you bring your requests. Pray for His Kingdom to come, not just for your corner of it.

Pray with Gospel Generosity — God is Lord of the Nations

In verses 7–10, the invitation widens further. It’s not just Israel being called to worship — it’s all the families of the earth. Every people group. Every nation. The psalmist declares: “Say among the nations, ‘The LORD reigns!'”

This is gospel generosity in prayer: holding the whole world in view, not just our own community.

The statistics are sobering. Around 42.5% of the global population — billions of people — have not yet heard the good news of Jesus. In Somalia, 99.7% of the population is Muslim. In Japan, fewer than 2% identify as Christian (Cf. https://joshuaproject.net/). The psalmist, writing centuries before Christ, prayed with these people in view. How much more should we?

This kind of prayer can feel abstract until you hear a story that makes it concrete. Listen to the stories of our mission partners and pray for them: Anna Radkovic in Kenya, Karina Brabham in France, and Anglican Aid, who serve in some of the most vulnerable places of our world. Prayers offered in one part of the world, answered in another. That’s what it looks like to pray with gospel generosity.

God’s patience, as 2 Peter 3:15 reminds us, means salvation. He is not slow — he is giving time for people to come to him.

For your prayer life: Let the Psalms stretch your prayers beyond the familiar. Pray for unreached peoples. Support those doing mission work through prayer. Ask God to show you how he is already at work in his world.

Pray with Joy — God is Lord of Creation

Psalm 96 ends with a grand choir — not just of people, but of all creation. The heavens, the earth, the sea, the fields, and the trees all join in. Why? Because the Lord is coming to judge the earth “in righteousness” and “in his faithfulness.”

This might sound solemn, but the tone of the Psalm is anything but. It’s joyful anticipation. Creation isn’t cowering — it’s singing. Calvin captured this beautifully:

“There is no element, no part of this world, which, being touched with the knowledge of the present misery, is not attentive to the hope of resurrection.”
J. Calvin, Commentary on The Epistle to the Romans

God’s judgment is good news because our judge is righteous — he will right every wrong. And because he is faithful, his covenant promises will not fail. The hope of the Psalm finds its fullness in Jesus, whose resurrection is the firstfruits of a new creation.

This means our prayer lives can be marked by joy, even in grief. Not the shallow positivity of optimism, but the deep joy of knowing that Christ’s victory is final.

For your prayer life: Begin your quiet time by praying or reading a Psalm aloud. Like the psalmists, speak to your own soul: “Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefit” (Psalm 103:2)!

This is not performance — it’s reorientation. It aligns your heart with God’s reality and with Jesus’ prayer life.

Where to Begin

You don’t have to be an expert to pray the Psalms. You just have to start.

Pick a Psalm and read it slowly for the first time. Then read it again, turning each line into a prayer. Let the words do the work that your own words can’t always do. On days when your heart is overflowing, they’ll give shape to your gratitude. On days when it’s empty, they’ll direct you toward God anyway.

We never stop learning how to pray. And the Psalms are one of the best teachers we have, because they were Jesus’ prayers first. In him and with him, we learn to pray the Psalms in truth.

For extra reading on this topic, check: