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F I N D I N G

G O D

I N T H E

V E R B S

Jennie Isbell amp J Brent Bill

Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer

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F I N D I N G

G O D I N T H E

V E R B S

Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer

Jennie Isbell amp J Brent Bill

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InterVarsity PressPO Box 983089983092983088983088 Downers Grove IL 983094983088983093983089983093-983089983092983090983094

ivpresscom

emailivpresscom

copy983090983088983089983093 by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from

InterVarsity Press

InterVarsity Press reg is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian FellowshipUSA reg a movement

of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities colleges and schools of nursing in the

United States of America and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical StudentsFor information about local and regional activities visit intervarsityorg

All Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from HE HOLY BIBLE NEW

INERNAIONAL VERSIONreg NIV reg Copyright copy 983089983097983095983091 983089983097983095983096 983089983097983096983092 983090983088983089983089 by Biblica Inctrade Used by

permission All rights reserved worldwide

While any stories in this book are true some names and identifying information may have been changed to

protect the privacy of individuals

ldquoChurch Registerrdquo copyright ldquo Te Sacred Sandwichrdquo httpsacredsandwichcomarchives983097983090983095983091 Used with

permission

ldquoTank You Good Nightrdquo by Carrie Newcomer copyright 983090983088983089983091 Windchime Productions Used with permission

Cover design Cindy Kiple

Interior design Beth McGill

Images copy ru983091apr iStockphoto

ISBN 983097983095983096-983088-983096983091983088983096-983091983093983097983094-983094 (print)

ISBN 983097983095983096-983088-983096983091983088983096-983097983095983089983096-983094 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

As a member of the Green Press Initiative InterVarsity Press is committed to protecting theenvironment and to the responsible use of natural resources o learn more visit

greenpressinitiativeorg

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Isbell Jennifer L

Finding God in the verbs crafting a fresh language of prayer

Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references

ISBN 983097983095983096-983088-983096983091983088983096-983091983093983097983094-983094 (pbk alk paper)

983089 PrayermdashChristianity 983090 Spiritual exercises I itle

BV983090983089983093I983096983091 983090983088983089983093

983090983092983096983091rsquo983090mdashdc983090983091

983090983088983089983092983088983092983092983092983092983095

P 983090983089 983090983088 983089983097 983089983096 983089983095 983089983094 983089983093 983089983092 983089983091 983089983090 983089983089 983089983088 983097 983096 983095 983094 983093 983092 983091 983090 983089

Y 983091983091 983091983090 983091983089 983091983088 983090983097 983090983096 983090983095 983090983094 983090983093 983090983092 983090983091 983090983090 983090983089 983090983088 983089983097 983089983096 983089983095 983089983094 983089983093

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

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Contents 983089 A New Way to Pray 852025

Exercise 1048625mdashhe Usual Prayer Suspects 1048625983091

Exercise 983090mdashhe Source of Prayer 1048625852022

983090 What Lies Beneath the Words 1048625852025

Exercise 983091mdashPrayer Words 983090983092

Exercise 983092mdashMy Belief Lenses 983090852023

983091 God in Action Finding Our Verbs 983091983091

Exercise 983093mdashCurrent Verbs 983091983092

Exercise 852022mdashMy Verb Sources 983092983090

Exercise 852023mdashWhere I Have Perceived God 983092983093

Exercise 852024mdashMy Verbs for oday 983092852023

983092 Images of an Active-ense God Nouns Tat Fit the Verbs 983092852025Exercise 852025mdashMy Names for God 983093983088

Exercise 1048625983088mdashGreetings and Salutations 983093983093

Exercise 10486251048625mdashUnpacking Images from Life and radition 983093852024

Exercise 1048625983090mdashA Singular Salutation 852022983088

Exercise 1048625983091mdashPlaying a Little More Boldly 852022983092

Exercise 1048625983092mdashScary Words 852023983088

1048629 Hope Beauty and Depth Adjectives and Adverbs 852023983091

Exercise 1048625983093mdashMy Modifiers 852023983093

Exercise 1048625852022mdashSubtraction 852023852023

Exercise 1048625852023mdashAvoiding Earnestly and All the Other Lees 852023852025

Exercise 1048625852024mdashImplications 8520241048625

Exercise 1048625852025mdashGrowing Our Prayers 852024983091

Exercise 983090983088mdashPraying Metaphorically 852024852023983094 Unpacking Meaning

Shared Language and Authentic Prayer 852024852025

Exercise 9830901048625mdashLearning from Jesus 852025983088

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Exercise 983090983090mdashUnpacking 852025852023

Exercise 983090983091mdashhe (Insert Your Name)rsquos Prayer 852025852025Exercise 983090983092mdashA ldquoBadrdquo Words Prayer 1048625983088983091

1048631 Jesus the Word of God and Our Words 1048625983088983093

Exercise 983090983093mdashDiscipleship as Listening 1048625983088852023

Exercise 983090852022mdashAn Incarnational Prayer 10486251048625983090

Exercise 983090852023mdashLife Prayer 10486251048625983092

Exercise 983090852024mdashWord of God and Our Words 10486251048625852023

983096 Beyond Words

Other Ways of CommunicatingmdashOr Not 1048625983090983091

Exercise 983090852025mdash My Resistance 1048625983090852022

Exercise 983091983088mdashResisting the Call 10486259830911048625

Exercise 9830911048625mdashGrowing Pains 1048625983091983092

Exercise 983091983090mdashGet into Your Body 1048625983091852025

983097 Gospel Means Good News And News Is New by Definition 1048625983092983091

Exercise 983091983091mdashhe Reality of God 1048625983092852022

Exercise 983091983092mdashNew Images of Prayer 1048625983093983090

Exercise 983091983093mdashGrowing Up Your Prayers 1048625983093852025

Appendix 1048625 Exercises for Building

Prayer as a Spiritual Practice 1048625852022983091

Appendix 983090 Prayer Exercises 1048625852022852022

Appendix 983091 Resources 1048625852023983091

Notes 1048625852023852023

Acknowledgments 1048625852024983091

Seeking and Finding God in the Verbsmdashthe Workshop 1048625852024983093

About Jennie 1048625852024852023

About Brent 1048625852024852024

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983089

A New Way to Pray

May these words of my mouth and this meditation

of my heart be pleasing in your sight

LORD my Rock and my Redeemer

P983155983137983148983149 1048625104863310486251048628

Whatrsquos that you sayrdquo Tatrsquos what a hard-of-hearing

grandparent used to demand of Brent and his slang-

wielding fast-talking cousins A few well-chosen words were

what was wantedmdashnot a bunch of idle chatter

ldquoWhatrsquos that you sayrdquo While God is not some elderly grand-

parent in the sky we wonder if God might be longing to say that

to us sometimes Tatrsquos probably because at times wersquove begun

to mumble Wersquove forgotten to pray from our hearts Wersquove

stopped listening for the Spirit working within us Wersquove lost

our connection to God Wersquove found that we no longer draw out

our own words from deep within our souls So we have hun-

gered for a new way of prayingmdasha way that reconnects us to themost important conversation of our lives

A few summers ago Jennie offered a workshop called Seeking

and Finding God in the Verbs for a meeting of Quakers in Plain-

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8520171048624 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

field Indiana Te title intrigued Brent and he signed up for it As

Jennie led the overflow workshop group participants delightedlycalled out verbs and worked their way toward new nouns to use

in addressing God in prayer Te room was full of energy

We had lunch after the workshop As we chatted and ate

Jennie mentioned that she came up with this workshop because

she wanted to help people connect more authentically to God

in their prayer life Brent replied that workshop certainly worked

for him

I told Jennie that what I learned in her workshop that morning

was going to change the way I prayed Using what she had

taught in that little more than an hour brought a fresh desire

to pray deeper and more authentically I said that I wanted to

write a book with her based on her workshop Her ideas about

language and how words mattermdashinforming both what weare saying in prayer and what we want to praymdashwas some-

thing people would resonate with and find really helpful

A few years have passed since that lunch conversation Wersquove

had a number of chats since thenmdasha large number Te book

you have in your hands is the result of those conversations about

prayermdashthe conversation of prime importance in our lives Tisbook is about a new way of praying that we want to share with

you

T983144983141 M983151983155983156 I983149983152983151983154983156983137983150983156 C983151983150983158983141983154983155983137983156983145983151983150

We both recognized the importance of prayer early in our lives

We had good teachers Brent remembers nighttime prayers at

home grace at meals at his and neighborsrsquo homes prayermeetings at church and his grandmother having other old

women (probably in their sixties) kneel in her living room for

prayer And Jennie says

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A New Way to Pray 852017852017

I learned to pray from the women in my life particularly my

mother It was not the words for prayer that I got from her butthe heart for it I cannot count the number of times she said to

me ldquoJennie the good Lord doesnrsquot give you anything you canrsquot

handlerdquo Tatrsquos just not the way it worksmdasheverything about her

ceaseless optimism was undergirded by this belief And I be-

lieved her I remember as a little girl watching her mouth shape

soundless words while driving while cleaning house while

cooking dinner I knew this was the ongoing conversation at thecenter of my motherrsquos life

As a girl I strained to hear the wordsmdashmy motherrsquos to God

Godrsquos back to my mother and Godrsquos back to me as I began my

own conversation ruthfully I canrsquot remember much of what

I prayed about back then Te quality of the conversation was

enough to keep me going

We learn from hearing or reading the prayers of others Tat

is why this book is peppered with the prayers of our friends and

colleagues You will find them in the sidebars Tey are authentic

deep prayers and we hope you will find them inspiring you to

the same

All of these experiences showed us the significance of a rich

prayer life We felt the quality of the conversation It kept usgoing For a while And then we found ourselves slipping into

patterns of oft-repeated prayers that werenrsquot up to the task of

spiritually nourishing communication with God Tese were

snack-bar microwave-meal and V-dinner equivalents of prayer

instead of homegrown home-cooked made-in-love sort of

prayers that we had been fed by in innumerable ways Or westopped praying at all expecting God the all-knowing to read

our minds and hearts and be satisfied

When we sat down one afternoon over coffee to chat we

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8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

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A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

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8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

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A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

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8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

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A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

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InterVarsity PressPO Box 983089983092983088983088 Downers Grove IL 983094983088983093983089983093-983089983092983090983094

ivpresscom

emailivpresscom

copy983090983088983089983093 by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from

InterVarsity Press

InterVarsity Press reg is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian FellowshipUSA reg a movement

of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities colleges and schools of nursing in the

United States of America and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical StudentsFor information about local and regional activities visit intervarsityorg

All Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from HE HOLY BIBLE NEW

INERNAIONAL VERSIONreg NIV reg Copyright copy 983089983097983095983091 983089983097983095983096 983089983097983096983092 983090983088983089983089 by Biblica Inctrade Used by

permission All rights reserved worldwide

While any stories in this book are true some names and identifying information may have been changed to

protect the privacy of individuals

ldquoChurch Registerrdquo copyright ldquo Te Sacred Sandwichrdquo httpsacredsandwichcomarchives983097983090983095983091 Used with

permission

ldquoTank You Good Nightrdquo by Carrie Newcomer copyright 983090983088983089983091 Windchime Productions Used with permission

Cover design Cindy Kiple

Interior design Beth McGill

Images copy ru983091apr iStockphoto

ISBN 983097983095983096-983088-983096983091983088983096-983091983093983097983094-983094 (print)

ISBN 983097983095983096-983088-983096983091983088983096-983097983095983089983096-983094 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

As a member of the Green Press Initiative InterVarsity Press is committed to protecting theenvironment and to the responsible use of natural resources o learn more visit

greenpressinitiativeorg

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Isbell Jennifer L

Finding God in the verbs crafting a fresh language of prayer

Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references

ISBN 983097983095983096-983088-983096983091983088983096-983091983093983097983094-983094 (pbk alk paper)

983089 PrayermdashChristianity 983090 Spiritual exercises I itle

BV983090983089983093I983096983091 983090983088983089983093

983090983092983096983091rsquo983090mdashdc983090983091

983090983088983089983092983088983092983092983092983092983095

P 983090983089 983090983088 983089983097 983089983096 983089983095 983089983094 983089983093 983089983092 983089983091 983089983090 983089983089 983089983088 983097 983096 983095 983094 983093 983092 983091 983090 983089

Y 983091983091 983091983090 983091983089 983091983088 983090983097 983090983096 983090983095 983090983094 983090983093 983090983092 983090983091 983090983090 983090983089 983090983088 983089983097 983089983096 983089983095 983089983094 983089983093

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

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Contents 983089 A New Way to Pray 852025

Exercise 1048625mdashhe Usual Prayer Suspects 1048625983091

Exercise 983090mdashhe Source of Prayer 1048625852022

983090 What Lies Beneath the Words 1048625852025

Exercise 983091mdashPrayer Words 983090983092

Exercise 983092mdashMy Belief Lenses 983090852023

983091 God in Action Finding Our Verbs 983091983091

Exercise 983093mdashCurrent Verbs 983091983092

Exercise 852022mdashMy Verb Sources 983092983090

Exercise 852023mdashWhere I Have Perceived God 983092983093

Exercise 852024mdashMy Verbs for oday 983092852023

983092 Images of an Active-ense God Nouns Tat Fit the Verbs 983092852025Exercise 852025mdashMy Names for God 983093983088

Exercise 1048625983088mdashGreetings and Salutations 983093983093

Exercise 10486251048625mdashUnpacking Images from Life and radition 983093852024

Exercise 1048625983090mdashA Singular Salutation 852022983088

Exercise 1048625983091mdashPlaying a Little More Boldly 852022983092

Exercise 1048625983092mdashScary Words 852023983088

1048629 Hope Beauty and Depth Adjectives and Adverbs 852023983091

Exercise 1048625983093mdashMy Modifiers 852023983093

Exercise 1048625852022mdashSubtraction 852023852023

Exercise 1048625852023mdashAvoiding Earnestly and All the Other Lees 852023852025

Exercise 1048625852024mdashImplications 8520241048625

Exercise 1048625852025mdashGrowing Our Prayers 852024983091

Exercise 983090983088mdashPraying Metaphorically 852024852023983094 Unpacking Meaning

Shared Language and Authentic Prayer 852024852025

Exercise 9830901048625mdashLearning from Jesus 852025983088

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Exercise 983090983090mdashUnpacking 852025852023

Exercise 983090983091mdashhe (Insert Your Name)rsquos Prayer 852025852025Exercise 983090983092mdashA ldquoBadrdquo Words Prayer 1048625983088983091

1048631 Jesus the Word of God and Our Words 1048625983088983093

Exercise 983090983093mdashDiscipleship as Listening 1048625983088852023

Exercise 983090852022mdashAn Incarnational Prayer 10486251048625983090

Exercise 983090852023mdashLife Prayer 10486251048625983092

Exercise 983090852024mdashWord of God and Our Words 10486251048625852023

983096 Beyond Words

Other Ways of CommunicatingmdashOr Not 1048625983090983091

Exercise 983090852025mdash My Resistance 1048625983090852022

Exercise 983091983088mdashResisting the Call 10486259830911048625

Exercise 9830911048625mdashGrowing Pains 1048625983091983092

Exercise 983091983090mdashGet into Your Body 1048625983091852025

983097 Gospel Means Good News And News Is New by Definition 1048625983092983091

Exercise 983091983091mdashhe Reality of God 1048625983092852022

Exercise 983091983092mdashNew Images of Prayer 1048625983093983090

Exercise 983091983093mdashGrowing Up Your Prayers 1048625983093852025

Appendix 1048625 Exercises for Building

Prayer as a Spiritual Practice 1048625852022983091

Appendix 983090 Prayer Exercises 1048625852022852022

Appendix 983091 Resources 1048625852023983091

Notes 1048625852023852023

Acknowledgments 1048625852024983091

Seeking and Finding God in the Verbsmdashthe Workshop 1048625852024983093

About Jennie 1048625852024852023

About Brent 1048625852024852024

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983089

A New Way to Pray

May these words of my mouth and this meditation

of my heart be pleasing in your sight

LORD my Rock and my Redeemer

P983155983137983148983149 1048625104863310486251048628

Whatrsquos that you sayrdquo Tatrsquos what a hard-of-hearing

grandparent used to demand of Brent and his slang-

wielding fast-talking cousins A few well-chosen words were

what was wantedmdashnot a bunch of idle chatter

ldquoWhatrsquos that you sayrdquo While God is not some elderly grand-

parent in the sky we wonder if God might be longing to say that

to us sometimes Tatrsquos probably because at times wersquove begun

to mumble Wersquove forgotten to pray from our hearts Wersquove

stopped listening for the Spirit working within us Wersquove lost

our connection to God Wersquove found that we no longer draw out

our own words from deep within our souls So we have hun-

gered for a new way of prayingmdasha way that reconnects us to themost important conversation of our lives

A few summers ago Jennie offered a workshop called Seeking

and Finding God in the Verbs for a meeting of Quakers in Plain-

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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8520171048624 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

field Indiana Te title intrigued Brent and he signed up for it As

Jennie led the overflow workshop group participants delightedlycalled out verbs and worked their way toward new nouns to use

in addressing God in prayer Te room was full of energy

We had lunch after the workshop As we chatted and ate

Jennie mentioned that she came up with this workshop because

she wanted to help people connect more authentically to God

in their prayer life Brent replied that workshop certainly worked

for him

I told Jennie that what I learned in her workshop that morning

was going to change the way I prayed Using what she had

taught in that little more than an hour brought a fresh desire

to pray deeper and more authentically I said that I wanted to

write a book with her based on her workshop Her ideas about

language and how words mattermdashinforming both what weare saying in prayer and what we want to praymdashwas some-

thing people would resonate with and find really helpful

A few years have passed since that lunch conversation Wersquove

had a number of chats since thenmdasha large number Te book

you have in your hands is the result of those conversations about

prayermdashthe conversation of prime importance in our lives Tisbook is about a new way of praying that we want to share with

you

T983144983141 M983151983155983156 I983149983152983151983154983156983137983150983156 C983151983150983158983141983154983155983137983156983145983151983150

We both recognized the importance of prayer early in our lives

We had good teachers Brent remembers nighttime prayers at

home grace at meals at his and neighborsrsquo homes prayermeetings at church and his grandmother having other old

women (probably in their sixties) kneel in her living room for

prayer And Jennie says

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A New Way to Pray 852017852017

I learned to pray from the women in my life particularly my

mother It was not the words for prayer that I got from her butthe heart for it I cannot count the number of times she said to

me ldquoJennie the good Lord doesnrsquot give you anything you canrsquot

handlerdquo Tatrsquos just not the way it worksmdasheverything about her

ceaseless optimism was undergirded by this belief And I be-

lieved her I remember as a little girl watching her mouth shape

soundless words while driving while cleaning house while

cooking dinner I knew this was the ongoing conversation at thecenter of my motherrsquos life

As a girl I strained to hear the wordsmdashmy motherrsquos to God

Godrsquos back to my mother and Godrsquos back to me as I began my

own conversation ruthfully I canrsquot remember much of what

I prayed about back then Te quality of the conversation was

enough to keep me going

We learn from hearing or reading the prayers of others Tat

is why this book is peppered with the prayers of our friends and

colleagues You will find them in the sidebars Tey are authentic

deep prayers and we hope you will find them inspiring you to

the same

All of these experiences showed us the significance of a rich

prayer life We felt the quality of the conversation It kept usgoing For a while And then we found ourselves slipping into

patterns of oft-repeated prayers that werenrsquot up to the task of

spiritually nourishing communication with God Tese were

snack-bar microwave-meal and V-dinner equivalents of prayer

instead of homegrown home-cooked made-in-love sort of

prayers that we had been fed by in innumerable ways Or westopped praying at all expecting God the all-knowing to read

our minds and hearts and be satisfied

When we sat down one afternoon over coffee to chat we

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8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

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A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

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8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

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A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

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8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

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A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

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Contents 983089 A New Way to Pray 852025

Exercise 1048625mdashhe Usual Prayer Suspects 1048625983091

Exercise 983090mdashhe Source of Prayer 1048625852022

983090 What Lies Beneath the Words 1048625852025

Exercise 983091mdashPrayer Words 983090983092

Exercise 983092mdashMy Belief Lenses 983090852023

983091 God in Action Finding Our Verbs 983091983091

Exercise 983093mdashCurrent Verbs 983091983092

Exercise 852022mdashMy Verb Sources 983092983090

Exercise 852023mdashWhere I Have Perceived God 983092983093

Exercise 852024mdashMy Verbs for oday 983092852023

983092 Images of an Active-ense God Nouns Tat Fit the Verbs 983092852025Exercise 852025mdashMy Names for God 983093983088

Exercise 1048625983088mdashGreetings and Salutations 983093983093

Exercise 10486251048625mdashUnpacking Images from Life and radition 983093852024

Exercise 1048625983090mdashA Singular Salutation 852022983088

Exercise 1048625983091mdashPlaying a Little More Boldly 852022983092

Exercise 1048625983092mdashScary Words 852023983088

1048629 Hope Beauty and Depth Adjectives and Adverbs 852023983091

Exercise 1048625983093mdashMy Modifiers 852023983093

Exercise 1048625852022mdashSubtraction 852023852023

Exercise 1048625852023mdashAvoiding Earnestly and All the Other Lees 852023852025

Exercise 1048625852024mdashImplications 8520241048625

Exercise 1048625852025mdashGrowing Our Prayers 852024983091

Exercise 983090983088mdashPraying Metaphorically 852024852023983094 Unpacking Meaning

Shared Language and Authentic Prayer 852024852025

Exercise 9830901048625mdashLearning from Jesus 852025983088

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8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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Exercise 983090983090mdashUnpacking 852025852023

Exercise 983090983091mdashhe (Insert Your Name)rsquos Prayer 852025852025Exercise 983090983092mdashA ldquoBadrdquo Words Prayer 1048625983088983091

1048631 Jesus the Word of God and Our Words 1048625983088983093

Exercise 983090983093mdashDiscipleship as Listening 1048625983088852023

Exercise 983090852022mdashAn Incarnational Prayer 10486251048625983090

Exercise 983090852023mdashLife Prayer 10486251048625983092

Exercise 983090852024mdashWord of God and Our Words 10486251048625852023

983096 Beyond Words

Other Ways of CommunicatingmdashOr Not 1048625983090983091

Exercise 983090852025mdash My Resistance 1048625983090852022

Exercise 983091983088mdashResisting the Call 10486259830911048625

Exercise 9830911048625mdashGrowing Pains 1048625983091983092

Exercise 983091983090mdashGet into Your Body 1048625983091852025

983097 Gospel Means Good News And News Is New by Definition 1048625983092983091

Exercise 983091983091mdashhe Reality of God 1048625983092852022

Exercise 983091983092mdashNew Images of Prayer 1048625983093983090

Exercise 983091983093mdashGrowing Up Your Prayers 1048625983093852025

Appendix 1048625 Exercises for Building

Prayer as a Spiritual Practice 1048625852022983091

Appendix 983090 Prayer Exercises 1048625852022852022

Appendix 983091 Resources 1048625852023983091

Notes 1048625852023852023

Acknowledgments 1048625852024983091

Seeking and Finding God in the Verbsmdashthe Workshop 1048625852024983093

About Jennie 1048625852024852023

About Brent 1048625852024852024

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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983089

A New Way to Pray

May these words of my mouth and this meditation

of my heart be pleasing in your sight

LORD my Rock and my Redeemer

P983155983137983148983149 1048625104863310486251048628

Whatrsquos that you sayrdquo Tatrsquos what a hard-of-hearing

grandparent used to demand of Brent and his slang-

wielding fast-talking cousins A few well-chosen words were

what was wantedmdashnot a bunch of idle chatter

ldquoWhatrsquos that you sayrdquo While God is not some elderly grand-

parent in the sky we wonder if God might be longing to say that

to us sometimes Tatrsquos probably because at times wersquove begun

to mumble Wersquove forgotten to pray from our hearts Wersquove

stopped listening for the Spirit working within us Wersquove lost

our connection to God Wersquove found that we no longer draw out

our own words from deep within our souls So we have hun-

gered for a new way of prayingmdasha way that reconnects us to themost important conversation of our lives

A few summers ago Jennie offered a workshop called Seeking

and Finding God in the Verbs for a meeting of Quakers in Plain-

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 815

8520171048624 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

field Indiana Te title intrigued Brent and he signed up for it As

Jennie led the overflow workshop group participants delightedlycalled out verbs and worked their way toward new nouns to use

in addressing God in prayer Te room was full of energy

We had lunch after the workshop As we chatted and ate

Jennie mentioned that she came up with this workshop because

she wanted to help people connect more authentically to God

in their prayer life Brent replied that workshop certainly worked

for him

I told Jennie that what I learned in her workshop that morning

was going to change the way I prayed Using what she had

taught in that little more than an hour brought a fresh desire

to pray deeper and more authentically I said that I wanted to

write a book with her based on her workshop Her ideas about

language and how words mattermdashinforming both what weare saying in prayer and what we want to praymdashwas some-

thing people would resonate with and find really helpful

A few years have passed since that lunch conversation Wersquove

had a number of chats since thenmdasha large number Te book

you have in your hands is the result of those conversations about

prayermdashthe conversation of prime importance in our lives Tisbook is about a new way of praying that we want to share with

you

T983144983141 M983151983155983156 I983149983152983151983154983156983137983150983156 C983151983150983158983141983154983155983137983156983145983151983150

We both recognized the importance of prayer early in our lives

We had good teachers Brent remembers nighttime prayers at

home grace at meals at his and neighborsrsquo homes prayermeetings at church and his grandmother having other old

women (probably in their sixties) kneel in her living room for

prayer And Jennie says

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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A New Way to Pray 852017852017

I learned to pray from the women in my life particularly my

mother It was not the words for prayer that I got from her butthe heart for it I cannot count the number of times she said to

me ldquoJennie the good Lord doesnrsquot give you anything you canrsquot

handlerdquo Tatrsquos just not the way it worksmdasheverything about her

ceaseless optimism was undergirded by this belief And I be-

lieved her I remember as a little girl watching her mouth shape

soundless words while driving while cleaning house while

cooking dinner I knew this was the ongoing conversation at thecenter of my motherrsquos life

As a girl I strained to hear the wordsmdashmy motherrsquos to God

Godrsquos back to my mother and Godrsquos back to me as I began my

own conversation ruthfully I canrsquot remember much of what

I prayed about back then Te quality of the conversation was

enough to keep me going

We learn from hearing or reading the prayers of others Tat

is why this book is peppered with the prayers of our friends and

colleagues You will find them in the sidebars Tey are authentic

deep prayers and we hope you will find them inspiring you to

the same

All of these experiences showed us the significance of a rich

prayer life We felt the quality of the conversation It kept usgoing For a while And then we found ourselves slipping into

patterns of oft-repeated prayers that werenrsquot up to the task of

spiritually nourishing communication with God Tese were

snack-bar microwave-meal and V-dinner equivalents of prayer

instead of homegrown home-cooked made-in-love sort of

prayers that we had been fed by in innumerable ways Or westopped praying at all expecting God the all-knowing to read

our minds and hearts and be satisfied

When we sat down one afternoon over coffee to chat we

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1015

8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1115

A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

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8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

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8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

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Exercise 983090983090mdashUnpacking 852025852023

Exercise 983090983091mdashhe (Insert Your Name)rsquos Prayer 852025852025Exercise 983090983092mdashA ldquoBadrdquo Words Prayer 1048625983088983091

1048631 Jesus the Word of God and Our Words 1048625983088983093

Exercise 983090983093mdashDiscipleship as Listening 1048625983088852023

Exercise 983090852022mdashAn Incarnational Prayer 10486251048625983090

Exercise 983090852023mdashLife Prayer 10486251048625983092

Exercise 983090852024mdashWord of God and Our Words 10486251048625852023

983096 Beyond Words

Other Ways of CommunicatingmdashOr Not 1048625983090983091

Exercise 983090852025mdash My Resistance 1048625983090852022

Exercise 983091983088mdashResisting the Call 10486259830911048625

Exercise 9830911048625mdashGrowing Pains 1048625983091983092

Exercise 983091983090mdashGet into Your Body 1048625983091852025

983097 Gospel Means Good News And News Is New by Definition 1048625983092983091

Exercise 983091983091mdashhe Reality of God 1048625983092852022

Exercise 983091983092mdashNew Images of Prayer 1048625983093983090

Exercise 983091983093mdashGrowing Up Your Prayers 1048625983093852025

Appendix 1048625 Exercises for Building

Prayer as a Spiritual Practice 1048625852022983091

Appendix 983090 Prayer Exercises 1048625852022852022

Appendix 983091 Resources 1048625852023983091

Notes 1048625852023852023

Acknowledgments 1048625852024983091

Seeking and Finding God in the Verbsmdashthe Workshop 1048625852024983093

About Jennie 1048625852024852023

About Brent 1048625852024852024

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983089

A New Way to Pray

May these words of my mouth and this meditation

of my heart be pleasing in your sight

LORD my Rock and my Redeemer

P983155983137983148983149 1048625104863310486251048628

Whatrsquos that you sayrdquo Tatrsquos what a hard-of-hearing

grandparent used to demand of Brent and his slang-

wielding fast-talking cousins A few well-chosen words were

what was wantedmdashnot a bunch of idle chatter

ldquoWhatrsquos that you sayrdquo While God is not some elderly grand-

parent in the sky we wonder if God might be longing to say that

to us sometimes Tatrsquos probably because at times wersquove begun

to mumble Wersquove forgotten to pray from our hearts Wersquove

stopped listening for the Spirit working within us Wersquove lost

our connection to God Wersquove found that we no longer draw out

our own words from deep within our souls So we have hun-

gered for a new way of prayingmdasha way that reconnects us to themost important conversation of our lives

A few summers ago Jennie offered a workshop called Seeking

and Finding God in the Verbs for a meeting of Quakers in Plain-

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8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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8520171048624 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

field Indiana Te title intrigued Brent and he signed up for it As

Jennie led the overflow workshop group participants delightedlycalled out verbs and worked their way toward new nouns to use

in addressing God in prayer Te room was full of energy

We had lunch after the workshop As we chatted and ate

Jennie mentioned that she came up with this workshop because

she wanted to help people connect more authentically to God

in their prayer life Brent replied that workshop certainly worked

for him

I told Jennie that what I learned in her workshop that morning

was going to change the way I prayed Using what she had

taught in that little more than an hour brought a fresh desire

to pray deeper and more authentically I said that I wanted to

write a book with her based on her workshop Her ideas about

language and how words mattermdashinforming both what weare saying in prayer and what we want to praymdashwas some-

thing people would resonate with and find really helpful

A few years have passed since that lunch conversation Wersquove

had a number of chats since thenmdasha large number Te book

you have in your hands is the result of those conversations about

prayermdashthe conversation of prime importance in our lives Tisbook is about a new way of praying that we want to share with

you

T983144983141 M983151983155983156 I983149983152983151983154983156983137983150983156 C983151983150983158983141983154983155983137983156983145983151983150

We both recognized the importance of prayer early in our lives

We had good teachers Brent remembers nighttime prayers at

home grace at meals at his and neighborsrsquo homes prayermeetings at church and his grandmother having other old

women (probably in their sixties) kneel in her living room for

prayer And Jennie says

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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A New Way to Pray 852017852017

I learned to pray from the women in my life particularly my

mother It was not the words for prayer that I got from her butthe heart for it I cannot count the number of times she said to

me ldquoJennie the good Lord doesnrsquot give you anything you canrsquot

handlerdquo Tatrsquos just not the way it worksmdasheverything about her

ceaseless optimism was undergirded by this belief And I be-

lieved her I remember as a little girl watching her mouth shape

soundless words while driving while cleaning house while

cooking dinner I knew this was the ongoing conversation at thecenter of my motherrsquos life

As a girl I strained to hear the wordsmdashmy motherrsquos to God

Godrsquos back to my mother and Godrsquos back to me as I began my

own conversation ruthfully I canrsquot remember much of what

I prayed about back then Te quality of the conversation was

enough to keep me going

We learn from hearing or reading the prayers of others Tat

is why this book is peppered with the prayers of our friends and

colleagues You will find them in the sidebars Tey are authentic

deep prayers and we hope you will find them inspiring you to

the same

All of these experiences showed us the significance of a rich

prayer life We felt the quality of the conversation It kept usgoing For a while And then we found ourselves slipping into

patterns of oft-repeated prayers that werenrsquot up to the task of

spiritually nourishing communication with God Tese were

snack-bar microwave-meal and V-dinner equivalents of prayer

instead of homegrown home-cooked made-in-love sort of

prayers that we had been fed by in innumerable ways Or westopped praying at all expecting God the all-knowing to read

our minds and hearts and be satisfied

When we sat down one afternoon over coffee to chat we

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1015

8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1115

A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 715

983089

A New Way to Pray

May these words of my mouth and this meditation

of my heart be pleasing in your sight

LORD my Rock and my Redeemer

P983155983137983148983149 1048625104863310486251048628

Whatrsquos that you sayrdquo Tatrsquos what a hard-of-hearing

grandparent used to demand of Brent and his slang-

wielding fast-talking cousins A few well-chosen words were

what was wantedmdashnot a bunch of idle chatter

ldquoWhatrsquos that you sayrdquo While God is not some elderly grand-

parent in the sky we wonder if God might be longing to say that

to us sometimes Tatrsquos probably because at times wersquove begun

to mumble Wersquove forgotten to pray from our hearts Wersquove

stopped listening for the Spirit working within us Wersquove lost

our connection to God Wersquove found that we no longer draw out

our own words from deep within our souls So we have hun-

gered for a new way of prayingmdasha way that reconnects us to themost important conversation of our lives

A few summers ago Jennie offered a workshop called Seeking

and Finding God in the Verbs for a meeting of Quakers in Plain-

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 815

8520171048624 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

field Indiana Te title intrigued Brent and he signed up for it As

Jennie led the overflow workshop group participants delightedlycalled out verbs and worked their way toward new nouns to use

in addressing God in prayer Te room was full of energy

We had lunch after the workshop As we chatted and ate

Jennie mentioned that she came up with this workshop because

she wanted to help people connect more authentically to God

in their prayer life Brent replied that workshop certainly worked

for him

I told Jennie that what I learned in her workshop that morning

was going to change the way I prayed Using what she had

taught in that little more than an hour brought a fresh desire

to pray deeper and more authentically I said that I wanted to

write a book with her based on her workshop Her ideas about

language and how words mattermdashinforming both what weare saying in prayer and what we want to praymdashwas some-

thing people would resonate with and find really helpful

A few years have passed since that lunch conversation Wersquove

had a number of chats since thenmdasha large number Te book

you have in your hands is the result of those conversations about

prayermdashthe conversation of prime importance in our lives Tisbook is about a new way of praying that we want to share with

you

T983144983141 M983151983155983156 I983149983152983151983154983156983137983150983156 C983151983150983158983141983154983155983137983156983145983151983150

We both recognized the importance of prayer early in our lives

We had good teachers Brent remembers nighttime prayers at

home grace at meals at his and neighborsrsquo homes prayermeetings at church and his grandmother having other old

women (probably in their sixties) kneel in her living room for

prayer And Jennie says

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 915

A New Way to Pray 852017852017

I learned to pray from the women in my life particularly my

mother It was not the words for prayer that I got from her butthe heart for it I cannot count the number of times she said to

me ldquoJennie the good Lord doesnrsquot give you anything you canrsquot

handlerdquo Tatrsquos just not the way it worksmdasheverything about her

ceaseless optimism was undergirded by this belief And I be-

lieved her I remember as a little girl watching her mouth shape

soundless words while driving while cleaning house while

cooking dinner I knew this was the ongoing conversation at thecenter of my motherrsquos life

As a girl I strained to hear the wordsmdashmy motherrsquos to God

Godrsquos back to my mother and Godrsquos back to me as I began my

own conversation ruthfully I canrsquot remember much of what

I prayed about back then Te quality of the conversation was

enough to keep me going

We learn from hearing or reading the prayers of others Tat

is why this book is peppered with the prayers of our friends and

colleagues You will find them in the sidebars Tey are authentic

deep prayers and we hope you will find them inspiring you to

the same

All of these experiences showed us the significance of a rich

prayer life We felt the quality of the conversation It kept usgoing For a while And then we found ourselves slipping into

patterns of oft-repeated prayers that werenrsquot up to the task of

spiritually nourishing communication with God Tese were

snack-bar microwave-meal and V-dinner equivalents of prayer

instead of homegrown home-cooked made-in-love sort of

prayers that we had been fed by in innumerable ways Or westopped praying at all expecting God the all-knowing to read

our minds and hearts and be satisfied

When we sat down one afternoon over coffee to chat we

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1015

8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1115

A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

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A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 815

8520171048624 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

field Indiana Te title intrigued Brent and he signed up for it As

Jennie led the overflow workshop group participants delightedlycalled out verbs and worked their way toward new nouns to use

in addressing God in prayer Te room was full of energy

We had lunch after the workshop As we chatted and ate

Jennie mentioned that she came up with this workshop because

she wanted to help people connect more authentically to God

in their prayer life Brent replied that workshop certainly worked

for him

I told Jennie that what I learned in her workshop that morning

was going to change the way I prayed Using what she had

taught in that little more than an hour brought a fresh desire

to pray deeper and more authentically I said that I wanted to

write a book with her based on her workshop Her ideas about

language and how words mattermdashinforming both what weare saying in prayer and what we want to praymdashwas some-

thing people would resonate with and find really helpful

A few years have passed since that lunch conversation Wersquove

had a number of chats since thenmdasha large number Te book

you have in your hands is the result of those conversations about

prayermdashthe conversation of prime importance in our lives Tisbook is about a new way of praying that we want to share with

you

T983144983141 M983151983155983156 I983149983152983151983154983156983137983150983156 C983151983150983158983141983154983155983137983156983145983151983150

We both recognized the importance of prayer early in our lives

We had good teachers Brent remembers nighttime prayers at

home grace at meals at his and neighborsrsquo homes prayermeetings at church and his grandmother having other old

women (probably in their sixties) kneel in her living room for

prayer And Jennie says

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 915

A New Way to Pray 852017852017

I learned to pray from the women in my life particularly my

mother It was not the words for prayer that I got from her butthe heart for it I cannot count the number of times she said to

me ldquoJennie the good Lord doesnrsquot give you anything you canrsquot

handlerdquo Tatrsquos just not the way it worksmdasheverything about her

ceaseless optimism was undergirded by this belief And I be-

lieved her I remember as a little girl watching her mouth shape

soundless words while driving while cleaning house while

cooking dinner I knew this was the ongoing conversation at thecenter of my motherrsquos life

As a girl I strained to hear the wordsmdashmy motherrsquos to God

Godrsquos back to my mother and Godrsquos back to me as I began my

own conversation ruthfully I canrsquot remember much of what

I prayed about back then Te quality of the conversation was

enough to keep me going

We learn from hearing or reading the prayers of others Tat

is why this book is peppered with the prayers of our friends and

colleagues You will find them in the sidebars Tey are authentic

deep prayers and we hope you will find them inspiring you to

the same

All of these experiences showed us the significance of a rich

prayer life We felt the quality of the conversation It kept usgoing For a while And then we found ourselves slipping into

patterns of oft-repeated prayers that werenrsquot up to the task of

spiritually nourishing communication with God Tese were

snack-bar microwave-meal and V-dinner equivalents of prayer

instead of homegrown home-cooked made-in-love sort of

prayers that we had been fed by in innumerable ways Or westopped praying at all expecting God the all-knowing to read

our minds and hearts and be satisfied

When we sat down one afternoon over coffee to chat we

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1015

8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1115

A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1315

A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 915

A New Way to Pray 852017852017

I learned to pray from the women in my life particularly my

mother It was not the words for prayer that I got from her butthe heart for it I cannot count the number of times she said to

me ldquoJennie the good Lord doesnrsquot give you anything you canrsquot

handlerdquo Tatrsquos just not the way it worksmdasheverything about her

ceaseless optimism was undergirded by this belief And I be-

lieved her I remember as a little girl watching her mouth shape

soundless words while driving while cleaning house while

cooking dinner I knew this was the ongoing conversation at thecenter of my motherrsquos life

As a girl I strained to hear the wordsmdashmy motherrsquos to God

Godrsquos back to my mother and Godrsquos back to me as I began my

own conversation ruthfully I canrsquot remember much of what

I prayed about back then Te quality of the conversation was

enough to keep me going

We learn from hearing or reading the prayers of others Tat

is why this book is peppered with the prayers of our friends and

colleagues You will find them in the sidebars Tey are authentic

deep prayers and we hope you will find them inspiring you to

the same

All of these experiences showed us the significance of a rich

prayer life We felt the quality of the conversation It kept usgoing For a while And then we found ourselves slipping into

patterns of oft-repeated prayers that werenrsquot up to the task of

spiritually nourishing communication with God Tese were

snack-bar microwave-meal and V-dinner equivalents of prayer

instead of homegrown home-cooked made-in-love sort of

prayers that we had been fed by in innumerable ways Or westopped praying at all expecting God the all-knowing to read

our minds and hearts and be satisfied

When we sat down one afternoon over coffee to chat we

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1015

8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1115

A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1315

A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1015

8520171048626 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

admitted to each other that we had prayer concerns Tey werenrsquot

the kind that are often mentioned in worship on Sundaymornings For Brent it was finding himself saying the same

words over and over He did this because growing up as a non-

liturgical Quaker he relied on unstructured informal prayers

I was taught those were the only authentic prayers Liturgical

written prayers like my Catholic playmates prayed were not

truly prayer because they were the vain repetitions that Jesus

preached against Te only real prayer had to spring spontaneously

from the soulmdasha movement of the Spirit in my childhood heart

Of course such teaching didnrsquot exactly square with ldquoNow I Lay

Me Down to Sleeprdquo ldquoGod Is Greatrdquo and other prayers Irsquod been

encouraged to memorize Still that thoughtmdashthat true prayer has

to arise unplanned from the heartmdashinfluences how I pray today

Jennie on the other hand learned in college the love of prayingthe Psalms and prayers from ancient Christians She loved the

feeling of companionship that she sensed in repeating their words

and she experienced gratitude for their transparency in their

struggles Tat transparency was apparent in their words of

pleading and their words of celebration However she also found

that relying too much on anotherrsquos prayers of intimacy with Godinhibited the ripening of her own relationship with the Holy One

At another meeting while our coffee cooled and the shared

scone disappeared we admitted that spontaneously or via a

prayer book we often heard the same words coming out of our

mouths time and again We found ourselves longing for some-

thing more something richer We imagined God bored with our

seemingly desultory superficial stanzas We knew we were We donrsquot think wersquore the only Christians who feel this way

People are hungry to pray authentically Just look at the over-

whelming response to Anne Lamottrsquos bestselling book Help

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1115

A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1315

A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1115

A New Way to Pray 8520171048627

Tanks Wow Te Tree Essential Prayers Tese are genuine

from-the-heart prayers Judging by the bookrsquos sales they reso-nated with readers Perhaps thatrsquos because many of us have

prayed those words Tey have sprung directly from our souls

and made their way out through our mouths People of faith

through the years have prayed them As Meister Eckhart says

ldquoIf the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it

will be enoughrdquo Help thanks and wow are essential And theyrsquore

enough if prayed with a real sense of need gratitude and inspi-ration that feeds our souls and connects us with God

But we admit that it was

easy for us to lapse into repeti-

tious refrains refrains that felt

less than sufficient to carry us

into the deep waters of the

Spirit we longed to dive into

Our hearts told us that we had

lapsed into easy God-speak

We werenrsquot reaching deep into our spirits and drawing out living

words of praise confession concern intercession and longing We

were tired of speaking in clipped shorthand to God We wanted to

pray in such a way that we showed up with our whole selves Te first action in changing the way we pray is to bring to light

and to mind our individual habits of prayer Tis book offers com-

panionship and guidance as you begin to notice consider and

deepen your prayer experiences We include exercises in every

chapter to bring the content to life to your life Reflection and

reflectively writing your way through this book will make reading

it a richer experience

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983089mdashT983144983141 U983155983157983137983148 P983154983137983161983141983154 S983157983155983152983141983139983156983155

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil ake a few moments

Please dear God thank

you for the amazing

opportunities you have

given me to answer to that

of God in other people

Elaine Emmi

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1315

A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1215

8520171048628 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

and make a list of the prayers you use regularly Write them out

as fully as you can We will revisit this list laterbull your daily prayers

bull your special-occasion prayers

bull your go-to prayers

bull written prayers that you enjoy

P983154983137983139983156983145983139983145983150983143 P983154983137983161983141983154983155 983151983142 I983150983155983152983145983154983141983140 I983149983152983141983154983142983141983139983156983145983151983150

Part of the holy experiment we propose with prayer language

involves practicing inspired and imperfect prayers

Inspired sounds pretty good doesnrsquot it Imperfect less so

After all doesnrsquot Scripture urge us to ldquobe perfect therefore as

your heavenly Father is perfectrdquo (Matthew 85202110486281048632) How can we

bring imperfect prayers before the perfect God We canrsquot if we think our imperfection is a surprise to God

We believe that thinking our imperfections might startle God

is one reason we held back from using words and images that

were the truest expressions of our reaching to Godmdashespecially

when our imperfections are not huge ones As Brent says

It would be easier for me to confess something big to God Tenin the face of such holiness a deep failing would come as no

surprise As if God is ever surprised But itrsquos the pettiness of my

imperfections that makes it hard to pray authentically and im-

perfectly in some ways Shouldnrsquot I be a better person now after

all these years of following the way of Jesus Has God been

keeping close enough tabs on me to know that I can often be

hateful mean-spirited impatient and riddled with imper- fection In my head I say ldquoYes God knowsrdquo but my heart says

ldquoKeep it hidden just in caserdquo

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1315

A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1315

A New Way to Pray 852017852021

As we talked about this in another coffee shop (we drank a lot

of coffee while working on this book) we decided that when webring our whole hearts and our willingness to be changed by

praying in a new way God delights in our efforts After all we

reasoned we werenrsquot the first imperfect pray-ers ldquoHappy is the one

who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocksrdquo (Psalm

852017104862710486311048633) hardly sounds like a prayer that would please the God who

is love Nope not even our imperfections set us apart from the great

remembered prayers and pray-ers of preceding generations What we learned from them as we looked at their prayers is that their

relationship with God was so consuming so inspiring so fearless

that they used their own words Stories of people being called to

God permeate Scripture We see this

as inspiration to consider what ways

God calls us to live and pray more

authentically

Troughout this book wersquore going

to invite you into new ways of using

your own words Tere will be times

that the language may feel awkward

or out of sync with your faith life However we have found that

being stretched beyond the familiar helped us move beyondfearing that in the most intimate relationship of our lives our

words would be insufficient Te exercises we offer to you opened

us in a fresh way to the great lover of our souls Risking using our

own words in an original approach helped us to know God (and

ourselves) a bit more as we were known by God

We continue to discover our habits of prayer even as we

change them In fact upon closer examination it may be thatthis process of discovery of our prayer habits and of where our

language and understandings rise from is the key to changing

them We rarely intentionally seek to change things that fly

God please guide me

let faith fill my heart

instead of fear

Jana Llewellyn

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1415

8520171048630 F983145983150983140983145983150983143 G983151983140 983145983150 983156983144983141 V983141983154983138983155

under the radar of our self-awareness Te hunger for something

deeper more authentic however awakens new eyes to see our-selves with Te next exercise will help you begin to see your

prayers and prayer habits from a few steps back which will

enable you to see them woven into your larger prayer life and

relationship with God

E983160983141983154983139983145983155983141 983090mdashT983144983141 S983151983157983154983139983141 983151983142 P983154983137983161983141983154

ake out your journal and a pen or pencil Now take a momentand say a prayer aloud Where did you go for your prayer Did

it spring spontaneously from your soul From your memory

From a prayer book

Te source does not matter so much as does an awareness of

the source If you read the entire exercise before saying a prayer

notice what thoughts informed your prayer choice

Write your reflections about the words you used You might

find it helpful to write the ldquoimportantrdquo words down

Were the words

bull bold

bull safe

bull edgybull perfect or imperfect

bull accurate reflections of how you feel and believe

And so we begin As we thought of an image for what wersquore

proposing we came up with tidying a sock drawer It is often best

to take all the socks out match up lost pairings in sensible ways

and then re-roll and make a perfect display that is easy to accessOf course deep and authentic prayer isnrsquot anything like a tidy

drawer But the metaphor with some limits does work Tis

book is a process Itrsquos staged in chapters with guided exercises

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions

8102019 Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J Brent Bill - EXCERPT

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullfinding-god-in-the-verbs-by-jennie-isbell-and-j-brent-bill-excerpt 1515

A New Way to Pray 8520171048631

to move you through the process of inventorying and clarifying

what is tucked away in your ldquoprayer drawerrdquo and how it got thereSometimes we get into a rut We only wear the first five pairs

of socks Our favorites that are always at the front of the drawer

Other socks get shoved to the back Tis can be true in prayer

as well In the next chapter we examine our go-to prayer words

and what we can learn by following the thread of them to their

origin as our favorites

Copyrighted Material wwwivpresscompermissions