Lord, Let Your Word Flow Through Me

You’ve studied. You’ve outlined. You’ve prayed kind of.

If you’re a preacher or Bible teacher, you probably do pray before you preach. Maybe it’s a brief request for clarity or the traditional prayer of illumination before Scripture is read. Maybe you ask God to move during your message or speak through your preparation. But what if there were more? What if a master of language and devotion left us a pattern to ignite our pulpit prayers with fire and depth?

Seventeenth-century poet and pastor George Herbert did exactly that.

In the final pages of his classic work The Country Parson, Herbert wrote a prayer titled “The Author’s Prayer Before Sermon.” This wasn’t a warm-up or a formality. It was a deeply theological, Scripture-soaked outpouring from a man who understood the gravity of standing between God and His people with His word.

This prayer isn’t just beautiful it’s instructive. It gives today’s preachers a guide for entering the pulpit with fear and joy, confidence and humility. Let’s trace seven movements in Herbert’s powerful prayer.

1. Acclaim the Creator

Herbert opens not with a request, but with worship. “O Almighty and ever-living Lord God! Majesty, and Power, and Brightness and Glory!”

Before we say a word to our congregations, we must look up. Before we craft a sentence, we must acknowledge the Sovereign who gives us breath. In a culture saturated with noise and distraction, beginning our preparation and our preaching with adoration recenters us.

Herbert praises God not just as powerful, but as personal. “You are our Creator, and we your work.”

We are not self-made. We are God-made. He formed us, placed us, called us. Our lives, our minds, and our pulpits belong to Him.

2. Admit Our Plight

But we are not what we were made to be. In poetic lament, Herbert recalls the tragedy of Eden. “We interrupted your counsels… sold our God… for an apple.”

That line stings. It should. Herbert reminds us that our fall wasn’t just catastrophic it was absurd. We traded infinite beauty for fleeting gratification. And we still do.

Before we proclaim grace, we must first grasp sin. Before we hold up a Savior, we must acknowledge what He came to save.

3. Extol God’s Mercy

But Herbert doesn’t linger in despair. He turns quickly to the heart of God “You have exalted your mercy above all things… where sin abounded, not death, but grace superabounded.”

God’s glory could have been displayed through our judgment. But instead, He chose to magnify His mercy. The gospel is not just God’s rescue plan it is His glory on display.

Preaching isn’t a TED Talk with Bible verses. It’s a declaration of mercy from a God who saves sinners for His joy and their good.

4. Marvel at the Savior

Then Herbert dives into the incarnation “Then did the Lord of life, unable himself to die, contrive to do it.”

He captures the wonder of God becoming man of Immortal Life choosing death. Herbert recounts Christ’s suffering not clinically, but worshipfully “He took flesh, he wept, he died; for his enemies he died.”

And then, triumph “You did rise triumphant, and therein made us victorious.”

This is gospel-centered preaching. Not just advice or encouragement, but the announcement of a Savior who bled, rose, and reigns. Our sermons must drip with this glory.

5. Ask for Help

Then Herbert pleads for divine aid “Lord Jesu! Teach me, that I may teach them.”

It’s a prayer every preacher should memorize. The task is too great, the stakes too high, the message too holy for self-reliance.

Herbert sees preaching not as performance, but as a sacred stewardship. Christ has entrusted His word “not to thunder, or angels, but to silly and sinful men.” What grace. What terror. What a call.

6. Pray for the Church

But Herbert doesn’t stop with himself. He lifts his eyes to the Church universal “Bless your word, wherever spoken this day throughout the universal Church.”

Preaching is never isolated. Every sermon echoes in a larger symphony of gospel proclamation. Herbert prays that God’s word would convert the lost, confirm the found, and preserve His people from dullness and distraction.

He even calls on Christ to “ride on” into the assembly, a nod to Psalm 45. This is the preacher’s hope that Jesus Himself will ride in on the Word, entering hearts with truth and power.

7. Petition for the Preaching Moment

Finally, Herbert turns to the preaching moment itself “O make your word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the life.”

He pleads for transformation not just information. He recalls Isaiah 55, that God's word will not return void. Then, like all good prayers, he ends where Jesus taught us to: the Lord’s Prayer.

This is preaching as worship. Preaching as dependence. Preaching as joy.

Why It Matters

In a digital age where sermons are often measured by views, shares, or polish, Herbert’s prayer is a thunderclap. It reminds us that preaching is a miracle. That only the Spirit can awaken hearts. That only Christ can change lives. That we stand in pulpits not to perform, but to proclaim.

So pastors, teachers, communicators: shall we try?

Shall we take up this prayer not to repeat mechanically, but to inhale deeply before we exhale God’s word?

“Lord, unleash your word through me. Pass it from ear to heart, from heart to life. Ride on, King Jesus.”

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