Do You Know How To Pray?

Amidst my busy schedule this week with finals next week and huge projects due all over the place, I've been trying to find more and more time to pray. And as I've been praying for strength and peace and for God to truly be my Sustainer, I was reminded of the realization I came to once a while back that not everyone who calls themselves a Christian, whether they really are or not, doesn’t pray. I think we assume that people pray but they really don't. I can't say why that is, only God and they know why that is, but what if, just what if, it’s because they don’t know how to pray? Can you teach prayer? Is it learned? Is it born in you? I don't know.

Are you the kind of person who doesn’t know how to pray? In fact, the Bible says that we don’t know how to pray and that’s where the Holy Spirit intercedes and helps us.

Maybe you don’t get prayer, why we do it, or how it helps. I understand how you feel. Sometimes I wonder if I know how to pray the right way. I wonder, “does God really hear this prayer? How do I know when or if He answers?” But then I go to Scripture and and encouraged by what the Bible says about prayer.

In Matthew 6, during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows His disciples how to pray and says this which people now call The Lord’s Prayer:

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come, your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’

Here, Jesus gives us an outline of how we can pray. If we analyze it we see that He prays with a pattern like this:

1) Praise God for who He is
2) Ask for His will to be done in our lives
3) Ask for the things we need Him to provide for us
4) Ask for forgiveness for things we have done wrong
5) Ask for help to forgive others
6) Ask for protection and deliverence

Also, I’m reminded of this verse in 1 John that speaks on prayer as well:

14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask
anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears
us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Be encouraged and give prayer a chance!

You can pray out loud, in your head silently, or by writing out/journaling your
prayers. They all work and they all have their advantages.

That is all.