Not every thought makes a good article and sometimes an entire article can be distilled down to a single thought. For those reasons, I like to occasionally create what I have created here–a roundup of brief, random thoughts. In this case, these thoughts are on prayer. Some of these are original and some are drawn from articles I’ve written in the past. I hope there’s something here that is helpful to you. (See also random thoughts on: Christian living; more Christian Living; the local church; and being a dad.)
No one apart from Jesus has ever mastered prayer, and no one apart from Jesus has ever fully understood it, so don’t be discouraged if you find praying difficult or perplexing. Be heartened that almost every book on prayer begins with the author admitting he is overwhelmed by his subject and convicted that he has not yet mastered it. It is more important that you obey than that you figure it out. You can pray with confidence, even if you don’t fully understand prayer.
While there are many resources designed to teach us to pray, and while they can be truly helpful, the only sure path to growing in your mastery and understanding of prayer is the one that involves actually praying. You learn to pray best by actually praying!
There are lots of great books on prayer and most Christians would benefit from reading at least one or two of them. Some of my favorites are A Praying Life by Paul Miller, It Happens After Prayer by H.B. Charles Jr., and Praying Together by Megan Hill.
A prayer meeting is a time in which a local church prays to God together, yet it is also a time in which the church teaches one another how to pray. If you struggle with knowing how to pray, be sure to attend the church’s prayer meeting, listen to the ways others pray, and imitate what they do well. They are your tutors.
Keep a long list and a short list of people in your church, with the short list being people you will pray for frequently (e.g., your small group) and the long list being people you will pray for less frequently (e.g., every member of the church). The more you have to do with people, the more likely they will be on your short list.
Pray through your church’s directory. Not only are you fulfilling one of your privileges and responsibilities as a member of the church, but you will also come to know and recognize people, especially if the directory provides their photo.
Pray for your enemies, just like Jesus said, and even pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44). As a lesser application of the same principle, it’s also wise to pray for people you just don’t like very much.
Ask other people how they pray and imitate them where it makes sense to. But don’t be discouraged if their prayer life seems far more vibrant than your own. We all have different personalities, different ways of relating to others, and even different ways of describing our experiences. We can learn from others and even imitate them, yet we cannot and should not try to be them.
Prayer is conversation with God—doing now through prayer what we will someday do face to face. It is relational. Just as some people relate to others intellectually, some will relate to God intellectually, and just as some people relate to others emotionally, some will relate to God emotionally. Pray in line with the way God has made you.
A prayer system can be a helpful aid to praying prayers that are both structured and varied. Such a system may involve the use of an app like PrayerMate or PrayMore or the use of notecards or a prayer journal. A system can help add structure to your prayer so, for example, you consistently pray prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. It will also ensure your prayers are varied by allowing you to pray for many people rather than the same ones and to thank God for a variety of his blessings rather than only a few.
There can be a lot of benefit in praying prayers that other people have written. The Valley of Vision is a popular collection of such prayers, though the language has become quite antiquated. The Prayers of the Church series offers prayers from four different eras of church history. You can also consider Into His Presence by Tim Chester and the three volumes by Daniel McKim: Everyday Prayer with the Puritans, Everyday Prayer with the Reformers, and Everyday Prayer with John Calvin. Kathleen Nielson’s 4-part Prayers of a Parent series is ideal for parents.
When someone asks you to pray for them, it is often better to do it right then and there than to do it at a later time, especially if you are as well-intentioned but forgetful as I am.
Parents, teaching your children to pray is both a responsibility and a privilege. Most of what they learn about prayer, they will learn from you, so attempt to model what it means to pray confidently and meaningfully.
I have found it helpful to adopt John Piper’s way of praying in concentric circles in which you pray in concentric circles beginning with your own soul and extending outward to the whole world. Begin with yourself and your own soul, then broaden to your family, your church, your neighborhood, and the world.
Most good books on prayer make this crucial point: Prayer is meant to change us, not God. It is meant to accomplish a good work in our hearts as we more and more come to know God, embrace his will, and conform ourselves to him. Here’s how R.C. Sproul says it: “Prayer does change things, all kinds of things. But the most important thing it changes is us. As we engage in this communion with God more deeply and come to know the One with whom we are speaking more intimately, that growing knowledge of God reveals to us all the more brilliantly who we are and our need to change in conformity to Him. Prayer changes us profoundly.”
While it is good to have a system, it is also good to sometimes set aside the system and pray for whatever you like. Personally, I tend to use the PrayerMate app on Tuesday through Friday, but to pray “freestyle” on Monday. This often involves praying specifically for the people I interacted with at church the day before, while also praying specifically for the concerns of the week ahead.
If a person suddenly comes to mind while you are praying, it’s probably wise to pray for that person in that very moment. It could be that the Holy Spirit is prompting you to pray for them, or it could be something else entirely. But either way, it’s never wrong to pray for someone.
When possible, try to pray with your husband or wife on a daily basis, and not just before a meal. In other words, try to pray with your husband or wife substantively on a daily basis.
If you like to walk while praying, as I do (in the warm-weather seasons, at least), pray for the people whose houses you walk by. If you walk the same route every day, pray your way down the street over time, perhaps a house or two per day. You don’t have to make it weird by stopping to raise your hands or anything. Just ask God to save and bless those specific people. It is entirely possible you are the only one on earth who is praying for them.
Though the Bible describes various postures for prayer, it never prescribes a particular posture. This gives us freedom to pray while walking, standing, sitting, kneeling, or prostrate on the floor. Because of the close connection between our bodies and minds, you may find it helpful to experiment with different postures.
It can be helpful to pray Scripture—to allow the emphases of the Bible to inform the emphases of your prayers. Donald Whitney offers practical guidance on this in the aptly-titled Praying the Bible, and it is as simple as can be: “Simply go through the passage line by line, talking to God about whatever comes to mind as you read the text. See how easy that is? Anyone can do that.” Nancy Guthrie’s The One Year Praying through the Bible for Your Kids can help parents pray for their children using the Scriptures.
There is no necessary correlation between the length of a prayer and the godliness of the person praying, or between the length of a prayer and the likelihood of God answering it. God is no more likely to hear and respond to a long prayer than a short one.
It is good to pray for people and it is good to pray with people. When possible, it is great to pray for people with those people—to let them hear the prayers you are praying on their behalf.
“The things you pray about are the things you trust God to handle. The things you neglect to pray about are the things you trust you can handle on your own.” H.B. Charles taught me that pointed lesson in It Happens After Prayer, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Try to become aware of words you may use frequently in your public prayers without being aware of doing so. Many people say “Lord,” “just,” “or Father God” so frequently that they become a distraction. (Once, out of interest, I counted as a young man said “Father God” over 100 times in a single prayer—he had no idea he had even said it once.) Just ask someone if you have such a habit and try to address it. That serves the people you pray with.
Don’t worry about praying eloquent prayers any more than you concern yourself with wowing your earthly father with eloquence when you chat with him. Be more concerned about baring your heart and expressing it to the Lord. God loves to hear you pray.
Prayer is a duty and can sometimes feel like a heavy duty. Prayer is work and can sometimes feel like a heavy burden. Yet prayer is a tremendous privilege, and we should never lose the wonder of knowing that we can speak to God himself. We can speak to him, trusting that he will hear and act. Let the joy of that never grow old!
