scripture memory, prayer, and grasshoppers

I am going to say one of those things that most evangelicals agree with, but rarely put into practice: scripture memory aids prayer.

Who will not agree that memorizing scripture is important? And who doesn't offer up prayers? I have noticed that a lot of prayers that are recorded for us in the Bible quote other passages of scripture. So this should tell us something about how we should pray. We should fill our prayers with scripture. This accomplishes several things. First it makes our prayers scriptural! Have you ever been frustrated with not being sure if you are praying the right thing? Pray scripture--you can't go wrong (keeping in mind contextual analysis). Praying scripture also elevates your view of God. What you will find out is that most of scripture speaks things and truths about God and not necessarily about you and me. So when you use scripture in your prayer, more times than not your prayers become God glorifying. When you get a better picture of who God is, by default we also get a clearer picture of ourselves.

For the past several weeks i have been working on Is. 40:12-end of chapter. It has been really good for my soul to see this hyper exalted view of God from this text. And just today i got a clearer picture of God and myself from verse 22. It says this--"It is He who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in." My view of God has been shaded with a new brilliant color because of this text. It was effortless for him to spread out the heavens. He did it with ease--just as easy as we toss a sheet in the air to spread it out! So God becomes bigger to me, and i also get a right view of myself--i am a grasshopper!