Does your prayer life get stale? Mine does. I have to reinvent it on a regular basis. After a while, the old time slot doesn’t fit my new schedule; my cozy chair starts to feel stuffy; words that used to inspire have lost their meaning. I guess that makes sense. I regularly have to reinvent my relationships. Dates with my husband change from dinners to dance lessons. Meetings with best friends go from playground dates with toddlers to coffee dates at Starbucks. Why should my relationship with God be any different?

The last time my quiet time started feeling wooden, I discovered prayer pictures.

I start with a Bible story and imagine how it could become a prayer. This allows me to hold an image in my mind while I apply the concepts beyond the literal story. We don’t usually need God to help us cross the Red Sea but … where do we feel cornered? Trapped with no obvious way out? That’s the place where we can pray that God would make a way for us to escape and drown the problems relentlessly chasing us. We might pray:

Father, I am so tempted to listen to Melanie when she wants to tell me about Joe. When she corners me in the hall, my back is against the wall, and that gossip — which I have no business hearing — hems me in. God, I need You. Part the sea for me and show me the way out. Show me a path to help Melanie understand Joe better. Drown the gossip. Put my feet firmly on the solid ground of truth spoken in love and bring me out safely on the other side of this temptation. Amen.

Almost any Bible story will work. The key is to imagine ourselves into the events. As we connect with the characters, we experience their emotions, which in turn motivate our prayer. Barb, a church friend, described her visualization of the woman Jesus healed in Luke 8:42-48. She thought about the woman’s increasing difficulty in pushing through the crushing crowd, imagining the way people might have shoved the woman and even stepped on her as she made her way closer to Jesus. Then, in contrast to all those touches, Barb pictured the woman having a warm, tingly feeling as the healing power flowed into her and as Jesus turned and spoke to her, confirming her healing. Barb related the story to events in our lives that crush against us and ultimately result in the healing touch of the Lord. This, too, could form the heart of a prayer picture.

Even stories that have no characters can become prayers. In Genesis 1, God’s Spirit hovered over the waters. In six days, He created beauty and variety, and it was very good. Holding that image in our minds, we can pray for any dark, chaotic situation — a struggling friend perhaps:

Creator God, Please send Your Spirit now to hover over Chris’s deep darkness. Speak Your creative Word and let there be light. Set up boundaries for the wild water in his life and keep my friend on dry land. Bring forth life in him, please God. Help him understand the season he is going through. Let the image of You that he carries within him shine forth. By the power of Your Son, who is also the Word who can accomplish this. Amen.

I especially enjoy turning each detail of a story into a part of a prayer. Caryll Houselander, in the first half of the 20th century wrote, “We should never come to a sinner without the reverence we would take to the holy sepulcher.” Thinking of the specific events described in Matthew 27, I put together a prayer for unbelievers:

Father, please reach out to the people I love who don’t know You. Cause a deep sleep to fall on the guards they have posted around their souls to keep Christians from tricking them with lies. Send any earthquakes necessary to wake up their need for You. Extinguish the lights they now live by. Let the true Light of the World stir in their hearts, and bring to life with Him their most holy thoughts and desires.

Send angels to tell them how to find their risen Lord. And then open their eyes and let them recognize Jesus Himself in whatever garden they’re searching. Let them, too, leave the hidden rooms of sin, accept the power of the Holy Spirit, and tell Your good news to the ends of the earth. May we grow in wisdom together, until we follow Him through the clouds into Your loving arms. Hallelujah. Amen.

Here’s one last example that assembles elements from three different stories of mothers who lost their sons. I call it “La Pietà” after Michelangelo’s famous statue of Mary holding Jesus’ dead body. I wrote it for my son, who is wandering far from home. (Before reading the prayer, refresh your memory about the resuscitation stories found in 1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 4.)

Father, here he is. My son. Mary held the physical body of her child, grown to manhood, gone before her into death. I hold my adult child’s spirit before you. His body lives, but the death of his soul weighs on my heart, as heavy as the burden on Mary’s lap. Like the widow at Zarephath, I wonder, “Is this the result of my sins?” Like the Shunammite in 2 Kings, I ask, “Why did you raise my hopes for this child?” My dreams of a strong, healthy son, walking in God’s light, lie dead, sealed behind the rock of his sins. I cannot roll those sins away.

All I can do is call out to You. I know Your Word is true. You are hope and life for anyone who comes to You. I fall at Your feet, and grab on with the bitter strength of distress. Nothing will push me away. Please, perform Your miracle again. You did it for the widow. You did it for the woman from Shunem. Lay Yourself on my son, too, Jesus. Stretch Your Spirit over him, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hand to hand. Let him speak Your praises, see with Your vision, do Your kingdom work. Revive him, restore him, redeem him, please, Lord. In the name of the One who alone has resurrection power, the Son who loved His mother, Jesus Christ, the Firstborn. Amen.

omehow, putting together these Bible stories helps me pray for situations in which I have no words of my own. As you read through the Bible, you will also notice the ways God’s work for His people in the past relates to your life today. Pray for the creativity to take those stories and use them as the basis for new requests, trusting in Our God who loves to answer — even when we pray in pictures.