I know what you’re thinking… “That’s what the Internet needs – another post about prayer!”
While it’s true, reading about prayer is not as beneficial as actually praying, some pointers on HOW to pray might be more worthwhile than you think. After all, the Christian community is in general agreement about if we should pray (we should), but it’s the ‘what’ and ‘how’ that trip us up a bit.
Do you ever struggle with what to say to God?
If you don’t, can you please contact me ASAP because I have so many questions for you. If you do, then be encouraged, you’re not alone. It can be hard to always know what to say to God. Sometimes we just don’t have the words. Other times, we just don’t know how to pray “in line with God’s will”. What’s the right thing to pray?
I’m increasingly dissatisfied with my habitual cliche praying. It’s all too easy to slip into buzzwords and phrases that I’ve prayed hundreds of times before, with no thought to their meaning or to the One I’m talking to. It’s too easy to pray on autopilot. My words might be true, but they have little Spirit in them. My lips can be near and my heart can be far.
Prayer isn’t just words. It’s meant to be more than that. It’s meant to carry chunks of me too; my heart, my soul, my worries, my meaning, my thoughts. Not just scattered seed of postcard platitudes.
One of the most helpful ways to give your prayers substance is to take the words of the Bible and pray those, putting yourself into the sentences, rooting yourself in the words of life. What does this look like? Let’s take a look and see…
There are prayers already in the Bible we can pray. Paul did it a lot as he wrote his letters to the various churches of the world. Here’s a good example from 2 Thessalonians 1:11-13 (hint: he quite often does this in the beginning of his letters)…
Now, all you do is substitute the “you” for “I”. Take what Paul is praying for you and pray it for yourself. Your prayer might sound or look like this instead:
Simple, but effective. The words of the Bible are powerful. When we pray them, they realign our hearts and thoughts, from our agenda to Heaven’s. We can be confident that we’re praying the will of God because we’re using His words. We move from just rambling words to real prayer.