This can also be done for a specific ministry, organization, or even a people group. You might even consider drawing through the Bible as you go to provide visual reminders of what you are learning or praying.
If you want to develop praying through the Bible as a habit, I recommend you choose a different translation each year. It is important to consider the person or ministry when you seek to pray through a Bible that will be relevant to them personally. I like to pick one that I know will have special meaning for them. So, when I prayed through the Bible for my husband, I used the Our Godly Heritage Bible. When I prayed for my children, I used the Legacy Bible. When I prayed for Grace University, I used the Apologetics Bible. When I prayed for my son-in-love, I prayed through the John C. Maxwell, Leadership Bible.
It is a lot of fun to take specific words, principles, commands, or promises and make these your focus for the prayer. I have also found that if I include the study notes as part of my prayer prompt, I will have more ideas for what to pray. I found that I prayed way more when I read the Bible this way and I discovered that my prayers were more powerful because I was given examples of answers to prayers on a regular basis. So, choosing the translation proves to be a significant part of the process.
For example, I prayed through the Leadership Bible over myself when I worked on my doctorate as I asked God to teach me how to become a leader for His kingdom work. I don’t know if I will ever see the fullness of all God has accomplished because of those prayers, but I can tell you that I am doing things I never would have dreamed of doing for His kingdom work.
Through the years God has caused me to give two different Bibles away. The first was to one of my girls I had the privilege of serving at camp. It came easily and honestly; I didn’t think much of it. After watching her grow up and share with me how much it meant, I realized that God might ask me again. He did!
This time I did not want to do it. I had prayed through the Bible from cover to cover over our university and I found that the prayers I was praying were becoming very important to me personally as well. I wanted and needed the reminders I was praying daily.
Our school was about to face a hard transition, and, in my prayers, He was preparing me for what was about to come. I did not know it at the time but looking back I get it now. God put on my heart I was to give my Bible to the new interim President to encourage him. I did not want to. I had spent over 2 ½ years praying through that Bible. I didn’t know if he would appreciate the richness of the prayers that I was handing to him. I knew he knew the importance and value of prayer, but I didn’t know if he would understand the depth of prayer I had invested in that Bible over the university. The prayers were like my faithful companions that encouraged me and I did not want to let go of them. But, I obeyed. I gave it to him hoping that God would use it to strengthen him. I don’t even know if he ever even opened the Bible, but I do know that God heard every single prayer and He was answering in behalf of the university in a very painful transition.
I discovered that the beauty of transformation happened in me more than the one or ones that I prayed for as I read the Bible.
Each year GOD taught me a little more. Well, at times A LOT more! It has been fun to go back and look at the Bibles that I have prayed through. My first Bible I prayed through is not as mature as the one I pray through today. I can see how over time GOD changed me through prayer. Truly, it has been radical and eternal in ways I never even imagined. I discovered when I was praying through a difficult season that God gave me a depth of love and compassion that I did not want to have at times. I discovered that God gave me a forgiving heart when I did not think it possible to forgive. I discovered that He opened doors that I never imagined would open and shut doors I wished He would have allowed me to walk through. It has been an incredible journey to travel.
There are a few practical things to consider as you pick a Bible to pray through. Often my ink bleeds through because the pages are too thin, or I used the wrong kind of pen. I know in some cultures they might not appreciate the mess this creates. But, for me these pages represent the relationship that has been birthed between me and God over the one I prayed. But, in case you are not as sentimental as I am and not one to be so careless, I would recommend that you pick a Bible with thick paper. Keep in mind that the nice leather-bound Bibles often have paper that is thin as onion skin. Paper seems to be thicker in the hardcover Bibles. So, you will have to decide if that is important. Over time, I learned to buy special no bleed pens. It took years before I learned that I could do this! You can buy these in color even. I have also learned to write prayers only in columns, so it doesn’t bleed into the text on the other page. But sometimes I don’t do this and I just celebrate what GOD was doing in me and through me. You will have to determine what you can handle and move on from there. For me the content of the Bible was more important to me so I celebrate what ever the columns and paper quality might be so I can get the content that I find relevant to the person I was praying over.
Over time, I realized that I need to give some people a challenge when they engaged the Word of God. I recognized that when I understood the character of God, I am better able to understand my own character so I have encouraged my leaders to read the Bible with the intent of writing down every name and character of God they can discover in the columns. I loved watching the revelations that were discovered by my women at Grace university when they took me seriously about this challenge. I loved watching them discover how to pray through the Bible to know HIM and not read a rule book! These moments proved to be profound and I now have the joy of seeing them out serving Him in many places living out the prayers they prayed.
I have also challenged leaders to pray for a people group they are seeking to reach. I now have the privilege of watching one that took this challenge as she serves overseas in a most unreached people group. There have been hard moments, too. Like when one of my women prayed through the Bible for her boyfriend thinking they would marry only to have him break it off after a few months of her praying. Her heart was invested because of the prayers. God knew what was best so the prayers accomplished His will, but I learned to not recommend praying for the opposite sex until there was a final commitment to marriage. I can bear witness to the fact that praying through the Bible over my Greg proved so fruitful on so many levels of deepening my love and respect for him.
So what do you do with all the leaders you work with that you know you should be praying for, but don’t have the time to pray through the entire Bible for each of them? Probably, the one leadership challenge that has become one of my other core prayers is to choose one leadership word and verse to pray over the person and the entire team. Every year I ask leaders I work with to choose one character trait of God that they want to be known for that year. I then choose a verse and pray that verse the entire year over this leader. I write these in the front of my Bible or in the front of my prayer journal so I can know how to pray for them and to pray consistently. This keeps me accountable in praying for many people on a smaller scale. I will also pray the leadership words for each individual over the team so that we all benefit from the character traits that are important to our team. I have been doing this over ten years now and God has humbled me with so many stories of how He has used that one word to transform the person as both of us focused on praying it into their lives. I have also been blessed by those that have taken up this challenge as a yearly habit for their lives and teams as well.
If you consider reading the whole Bible and praying it for a year, it may seem like a huge and daunting task. May this African proverb encourage you, “A path is made by simply walking.” It is the daily small steps of reading and praying that will build up over time and before you know it you will have been praying through the Bible through many years and God will use that accumulative effort because His Word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11). You will grow and fruit will be born in tge kingdom because of your prayers. So, read and pray. God will use it! He promises!
