Learn the Language

I just came across this great little book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible. He makes the “light comes on” point that too many of us attempt to talk to God “from the heart” without learning to speak God’s language . . . from His Word.

“The child learns to speak because his father speaks to him. He learns the speech of his father. So we learn to speak to God because God has spoken to us and speaks to us. By means of the speech of the Father in heaven his children learn to speak with him. Repeating God’s own words after him, we begin to pray to him. We ought to speak to God and he wants to hear us, not in the false and confused speech of our heart, but in the clear and pure speech which God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ.”