I worship every Sunday in a contemporary church. Hymns occur infrequently in the course of Sunday worship. Nonetheless, they remain an integral, daily part of my life. That’s because in my youth I acquired (and have since retained) the habit of using the hymnal as an aid to prayer.

As a young man who had fallen in love with Jesus, I discovered just how poor my prayer vocabulary was. I was frequently frustrated by my inability to articulate the things that were in my heart. I longed for a better way to express myself in prayer. When it dawned on me that hymns could not only be sung but also spoken, I began to employ the poetry of Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby and others as a sort of private prayer diary. My well-worn hymnal has since bracketed and buttressed my prayers like no other book except the Bible. (Oddly, it was years later that I began praying the Bible in much the same way I had been using the hymnal.)

Praying the hymnal is so simple, anyone can do it. It takes no practice and little preparation. Yet it’s a singularly enriching practice. It will help you pray when you don’t know what to pray. It will help you express the deepest and highest longings of your heart in ways you never may have experienced otherwise. It will keep or make the great hymns of the church a vital part of your life (particularly important for those who worship in more contemporary churches). It will, over time, fill your praying with rich phrases and stunning verses until, eventually, your memory will overflow with the lofty lyrics of history’s finest poets even when you’re not reading from the printed page.

Just a few simple suggestions will suffice to get you started in the practice of praying the hymnal:

· Speak the hymn instead of singing it, especially at first. Resist the temptation to sing. Some people find it easy to pray while they’re singing, but for most of us, speaking (aloud, if possible) will breathe new life into the words of a hymn such as

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do. (“Breathe on Me, Breath of God,” Hatch)

It may be hard at first not to be distracted by the melody (especially with the most familiar hymns), but since you will probably be speaking at a different pace than if you were singing, it will soon become more of a prayer than a piece of music.

· Choose hymns that are prayers themselves — hymns that speak directly to God. Not all hymns are prayers, of course. Some teach, some testify, some inspire. But those that are written as prayers — like “Have Thine Own Way,” “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,” “Take My Life and Let It Be” — need no revision or adaptation to be aids to prayer and worship.

· Adapt the hymn’s wording to make it more personal or applicable to you. You may wish to change the “thees” and “thines” of some hymns to “yous” and “yours.” You may also want to change corporate language (“our” and “us”) to singular (“my” and “me”), as well as personalizing in other ways. For example, the hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” (Watts) may be revised as you pray,

God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
You are my shelter from the stormy blast,
And my eternal home. …

· Focus your heart and mind not on the rhythm or rhyme but on what the hymn is saying. Some people struggle to sincerely pray written words because they have trouble turning words on a page into the prayer of their hearts. It does take concentration; nonetheless, it is possible to overcome familiarity, rhythm, rhyme and any other obstacle to truly pray,

Lord, lift me up and let me stand,
By faith, on Heaven’s table land,
A higher plane than I have found;
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.
(“Higher Ground,” Oatman)

· Feel free to amplify or meditate on specific lines or words in the hymn. Praying a hymn can be just the beginning of prayer if you give yourself permission to dig deeper into the sentiment the hymn has helped you express. For example, you might pause after praying the first two lines of John Oxenham’s hymn “’Mid All the Traffic of the Ways” —

’Mid all the traffic of the ways,
Turmoils without, within, —

to pray, “Lord, You know that’s exactly what my life has been like this past week. I feel so hurried and harried, even as I come to You in prayer, so … ”

Make in my heart a quiet place,
And come and dwell therein.

Or you might stop at the third line and meditate on the phrase “a quiet place,” picturing a tranquil lake or serene garden and asking God to make your heart like that.

· Pay special attention to hymns that rephrase Scripture. I’ve found added purpose and power in prayer through hymns drawn from Scripture. This is what Jesus did on the cross when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He was using the words of a familiar hymn (Psalm 22) to express the cry of His heart! Many hymns are based on Scripture, but some are Scripture in verse: “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” (Psalm 23), “As Pants the Hart for Cooling Streams” (Psalm 42), “What Shall I Render to My God?” (Psalm 116:12-19), and “Bless the Lord, O My Soul” (Psalm 103:1), to name a few.

To these suggestions you will, of course, want to add your own flourishes. But they are offered in the hope that you will soon find new energy and fulfillment in prayer by borrowing the words of the church’s great hymn writers. That has been my experience many times as I have been driven, speechless, to my knees in prayer, only to find exactly what I long to say waiting for me in the lines of my hymnal. And that, I believe, brings blessing not only to me, but music to God’s ears as well.