Learning to Pray

References:
• Matthew 6:9-13 NAS
• Prayer Online
• The UMC Book of Worship
• PC USA Book of Common Worship

This blog entry is based on a Bible Study that I did with members of the church my wife and I attend. It is definitely not an exhaustive look at what prayer is. Whole books written by people who have spent much more time studying the Christian concept of prayer. Instead, this is simply an introduction to my understanding of prayer. If there is enough interest, I will be happy to go into deeper detail with different aspects of prayer.

Let me first emphasize something. It is my opinion (and experience) that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to pray. Just as learning new skills, learning a language, cooking, etc., everyone has their own style and preferences. Some styles of prayer are more appropriate for different situations. However, praying is as unique as the person saying the prayer and the situation that created the need/desire for prayer.

Growing up a Presbyterian minister’s son, I learned a lot of prayers over the years. Some of them were typical prayers said before meals, others were prayers typically said before bed. Two examples are “Now I lay me down to sleep….” and ‘God is great, God is good…” I also grew up seeing the Psalms are awesome examples of prayers. I don’t think I ever saw them as exhaustive examples, just some examples.

While growing up in the church, I also learned to pray for others. Whether for healing, strength, encouragement, safe travels, etc. Although I learned all of these different prayers, I did not develop a deep prayer life until many years later.

While in college and seminary, I was introduced to many styles of prayers. I was also given ‘formulas’ for ‘how to pray.’ While I believe that acronyms can be helpful for doing prayers, I don’t think that they are absolutely essential. One ‘formula’ (acronym) that I came across recently that can be helpful is ACTS. ‘A’ is for adoration, praising God for who He is. ‘C’ is for Confession, telling Him everything we’ve done wrong and asking for His forgiveness. ‘T’ is for thanksgiving, thanking Him for answered prayers and for helping us in our daily lives. And ‘S’ is for supplication, asking God for daily needs (http://www.prayeronline.org.au/how-to-pray).

But, for me, one of the most important things that I have learned is that prayer is to be a conversation with God. One way of looking at it is, we read Scripture to hear from God. And then we pray in order to talk with God. While I do pray this way at times, I more often do not. Instead, I will spend a large portion of time while walking, driving, or sitting in the house and reflect on things in my life while praying. Sometimes I might have a list of things that I want to make sure and pray about, but often I don’t.

On many occasions, I have gone for a walk and prayed for others. Things that I typically will pray about are my friends and family, the businesses and/or houses that I walk buy, up coming events in my life, etc. There rarely is a set agenda, I just pray about what comes to mind. I was first exposed to this idea of ‘prayer walking’ while in college. It is a good way for working on praying in a more spontaneous manner.

I do something a little different while driving to work. Over the years, I have developed the habit of spending at least 10 minutes of my commute to work (be it for the Department of Corrections, the Nebraska Guard unit, or something else). Typically, I will acknowledge my sinful nature, thank God for His healing and forgiveness, and transition to thanking Him for giving me His Spiritual Armor (Ephesians 6:10-18). Then I will often start praying about my upcoming day at work, things that I know I will experience, making the right decisions, that myself and all others in a leadership role will make the right choices, etc. Some days, I only spend 5-8 minutes in prayer. Other times, I have spent an entire commute in prayer. Either because of all the things that came to my mind to pray for, or because I was spending a lot of time praising and thanking God for things He has already done.
Some people like to keep a prayer journal. I have done this on occasion, but have not been very consistent with it. Probably because I typically prefer to pray while doing other things like walking or driving.

While I was at FT Bragg, and friend of mine and I decided to become prayer partners. We would call each other on a regular basis (frequently to daily, depending on our schedules). During our phone calls, we would share recent news, prayer requests, and then pray together. Since we would usually pray with each other while talking on the phone, we jokingly would say, “Do you want to dial and then I hang up?” That is, one of us would ‘dial,’ or start the prayer. Then, we would pray as we felt the Holy Spirit guiding us. Eventually, when the other person felt led to do so, he would ‘hang up.’ That is, he would close the prayer. It was something that worked really well for us.

Asides from the many examples of prayer in Scripture, two other good resources come to my mind. One is Chapter 3 of “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard J. Foster. The other is chapter 15 of “The Cost of Discipleship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In both of these examples, the respective author spends times talking about their perspectives and experiences on prayer. There are many, many other resources out there that one can use.

In closing, I want to emphasize a couple of things. One is that how a person prays is really going to depend on who the person is and the particular situation that they are praying about. A person should always be learning and growing with how they pray. Try different ways of praying. Try keeping a prayer journal, pray by yourself and pray with others, experiment with praying for people while out walking, etc. Over time, God will help you learn ways to pray that honor Him and draw you closer into a deeper relationship with Him. In fact, that should be one of your goals with prayer, to experience His love and grace more, to walk closer with Him, and to be able to be more responsive to His guidance. Be ready to be surprised by Him as you do this. He has truly done that with me.