I’m not satisfied with my prayer life. And according to a recent survey, I’m not alone. Only two percent of the 14,000 people who were surveyed scored themselves as a 9 or 10 on a scale from 1-10. Almost half of the respondents rated their prayer lives at 4 or below.
Most of us haven’t prayed for at least 10 minutes in the last 24 hours.
And today, I’m finally ready to do something. If you are as well, please read on as I learn, over the next few weeks, how to pray better than I do.
What Is Prayer?
How we look at prayer affects how we go about praying. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking of prayer as our Christian duty—or as a fire extinguisher, something to be pulled out only in case of emergencies.
What if we instead look at prayer as the opportunity to talk to the one who knows us best, who loves us most, who has the wisdom to give us the perfect answer, and who has the power to actually do what is needed?
I think we’d buy tickets and stand in line!
Before We Pray
God has much to say about prayer in the Bible, including things we should do before we pray. Now, if you don’t do these things, that doesn’t mean you can’t go ahead and pray. But if you follow God’s advice about these things, perhaps it would be more like sending prayers special delivery.
1. Read the Bible.
Have you ever thought that reading the Bible can also be praying? If we remember that the Bible is the only book whose author is always present when we read it, our Bible reading can be also be our prayer. But praying the Bible also means that you must stop as you read and interact with God.
The Bible also gives us parameters for our prayers. For example, don’t pray for God to help you seek revenge. He’s already told us not to repay evil with evil.
2. Forgive (everyone).
As Jesus is forgiving me, always with great love and affection, I must also be willing to forgive others. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he cautioned against withholding forgiveness.
3. Come to God with confidence.
Just as parents want their children to trust them, God wants us to enter his presence with faith in Him. He wants us to believe that he will always help us, that we will receive his loving-kindness and have his loving-favor whenever we need it. God even promises that when we don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit prays to God for us.
4. Check your priorities and motives.
As we become better at putting God first in our lives, our priorities and motives become better aligned with God’s purposes. It’s only then that we can claim God’s promise that we will receive all things that we ask for in prayer, through faith. It’s only then that we trust God even for unanswered prayer.
5. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in your life.
Psalm 66:18 warns us that when we embrace sin—when we know it’s there and don’t do anything about it–God doesn’t hear our prayers.
Rather, we need to let the Holy Spirit do deep cleaning in our lives. As David wrote in Psalm 139, we should ask God to search us and reveal anything that grieves him—and then repent and turn from it.
Fully Prepared
What happens when we pray, fully prepared? As described by N. T. Wright, our prayer “merges into love, as the presence of God becomes so real that we pass beyond words and into a sense of his reality, generosity, delight and grace.”
This week, let’s work on preparing for our prayer life—and stay tuned for next week!
If you appreciated this article, please join the community!