Change Me Prayers

Here are a few examples of what I call "Change Me Prayers." Prayers or appeals to God in the Bible asking for a change in circumstances or charcter. I am interested in extending my list of this type of prayer with emplasis on change of character.

Psalm 141 Ps 141:4

Do not let my heart incline to •any evil,

to busy myself with •wicked deeds

in company with men who work iniquity,

and let me not eat of their delicacies!

Psalm 143 Ps 143:10

10 Teach me to do your will,

for you are my God!

Let your good Spirit lead me

on level ground!

Psalm 119 Ps 119:36

36 Incline my heart to your testimonies,

and not to selfish gain!

Chapter 34 Job 34:32

32 teach me •what I do not see;

if I have done iniquity, I will do it no more’?

Psalm 25 Ps 25:4–5

4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord;

teach me your paths.

5 Lead me in your truth and teach me,

Can anyone think of a good Bible search query?

Appreciatively

-john

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Comments

Al Het

John,

Advanced searches are not my strength in Logos, but you will likely get really good input on that from people here.

My only input is relating to the nature of the search. I have found that having a tight idea of what you are searching for helps significantly in finding specific Scriptures. So, the passages you have provided as a starter seem to focus on two different elements. The first is, "Do not incline my heart toward evil..." The verb in this context has the connotation of "bend toward," or influence in that direction. This is along the lines of Jesus' sample prayer, "Don't lead me into temptation..."

The second is along the lines of "teach me how to follow, do Your will, etc." This implies that I want to do what You would have of or for me, but please teach me how.

Neither of these are as much a request for God to change one's character, as they are requests for direction/instruction for one to follow. I think there are lots of passages that address these types of topics. On the other hand, prayers along the lines of "change my heart," "make me a person of better integrity," are somewhat different, and would require searching in a bit of a different direction (and I think would be much harder to find in Scripture). In that case, you would need to define precisely how to search for that topic...

Hope that's helpful.

James Chandler

Perhaps you would get good results from the passage guide. Specifically "Cross References" and "Parallel Verses."

TCBlack

Searches like this still confound me but I'll take a stab.

You can search through your bible everywhere that God is the one being spoken to with

{Addressee <Person God>} | Top Bibles, All Passages

To Search where God is being asked to do something you might consider where the Imperative is used. That would like like this:

{Section <Sentence = Imperative>} AND {Addressee <Person God>} | Top Bibles, All Passages

You can also limit it with {Speaker <Person Psalmist>} to gain a nice list, however Psalm 25 doesn't show up on that list, so I am clearly doing something wrong.

I'm sure further experimentation would take you where you need to go. I have permitted the powerful search tools in Logos to elude me for far too long. You've just managed to show me where I need to lean on my learning time.

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901382#Comment_901382

Thanks Al Het for the thoughtful response. I clearly need to rethink what I was asking for. Your post will give me a head start.

James and TCBlack, thank you both for taking me seriously and giving me something I can get started with. This will be fun!

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901402#Comment_901402

To Search where God is being asked to do something you might consider where the Imperative is used. That would like like this:

{Section <Sentence = Imperative>} AND {Addressee <Person God>} | Top Bibles, All Passages

Bible verse can have more than one sentence so a search refinement is using INTERSECTS along with expanding Addressee list:

{Section <Sentence = Imperative>} INTERSECTS ({Addressee <Person God>}, {Addressee <Person Jesus>})

Noticed Psalms 119 had no results so looked for a preaching theme intersection with imperative:

{Section <PreachingTheme Prayer: Petition>} INTERSECTS {Section <Sentence Imperative>}

Results included Psalm 25.4-5, Psalm 119:36, Psalm 141:4, and Psalm 143:10 while lacking Job 34:32 so modified search to include another preaching theme:

({Section <PreachingTheme Prayer>} OR {Section <PreachingTheme Prayer: Petition>}) INTERSECTS {Section <Sentence Imperative>}

FYI: Bible Compare English collection is a set of Reverse Interlinear Bibles that have been enabled for Interlinear Text Comparison.

Keep Smiling [:)]

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901447#Comment_901447

Wow! Now I am smiling too!

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901447#Comment_901447

Results included Psalm 25.4-5, Psalm 119:36, Psalm 141:4, and Psalm 143:10 while lacking Job 34:32 so modified search to include another preaching theme:

({Section <PreachingTheme Prayer>} OR {Section <PreachingTheme Prayer: Petition>}) INTERSECTS {Section <Sentence Imperative>}

Can be refined a bit more by intersecting with addressee list

({Section <PreachingTheme Prayer>} OR {Section <PreachingTheme Prayer: Petition>}) INTERSECTS {Section <Sentence Imperative>} INTERSECTS ({Addressee <Person God>}, {Addressee <Person Jesus>})

Psalm 119 is not in search results.

Keep Smiling [:)]

David A Egolf

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901447#Comment_901447

KS4J,

When I try to duplicate your results, there is never any verses from the O.T. My results start in Matthew.

Just for a sanity check, I searched for "Egypt" and, as expected, the results start in Genesis. Can you think of why your search terms would be limited to the N.T.?

Thanks.

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901463#Comment_901463

Can you think of why your search terms would be limited to the N.T.?

Sentence Type has New Testament => New Feature: Sentence Types of the New Testament Dataset (Logos 7 feature: Starter or Higher)

Old Testament => New Feature: Sentence Types of the Old Testament Dataset (Logos Now OR Verbum Now OR Logos Cloud)

Preaching Themes dataset needs Full Feature Set (or higher) OR appropriate membership/subscription.

Thankful for Now membership.

Keep Smiling [:)]

John Connell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901485#Comment_901485

Looks like a significant upgrade to Full Feature Set or Logos Now membership to get the answers I need. . .

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901485#Comment_901485

Preaching Themes dataset needs Full Feature Set (or higher) OR appropriate membership/subscription.

Preaching Themes was improved in Logos 6 (part of older Cross Grades or Base Packages). A way to check for Preaching Themes license is searching:

({Section <PreachingTheme Prayer>} OR {Section <PreachingTheme Prayer: Petition>})

Sentence Imperative includes sentences with an imperative verb plus more. Morph Search can find imperative verbs.

Keep Smiling [:)]

Schumitinu

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901552#Comment_901552

Looks like a significant upgrade to Full Feature Set or Logos Now membership to get the answers I need. . .

Not sure which features you have or don't have. But in case you do own the Addressee dataset, you could try the following search string as a starting point:

(<LogosMorphHeb ~ V?M??????> OR <LogosMorphGr ~ V??M????>) (<LogosMorphGr ~ RP1????> OR <LogosMorphHeb ~ RP1????>) INTERSECTS {Addressee <Person God>}

This looks for imperative verbs and 1st person pronouns within text that is addressed to God. This gives 80+ hits which you can weed through.

You could save these hits as a passage list and then continue to search within that passage list. Maybe you can think of senses that cover what you are looking for, preaching themes, or something else.

Schumitinu

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/901637#Comment_901637

Just noticed that my hits did not include the verses you already quoted. Here is another search string for the OT that might be more accurate:

(<LogosMorphHeb ~ V?M??????> BEFORE 1 WORDS <LogosMorphHeb ~ RS1????>) INTERSECTS {Addressee <Person God>}