Prayer

Today, I just want to give you a few pointers and little tricks of the trade that I have learned about prayer. Hopefully this is practical and can really be a help for your prayer life, I know it has helped me.

First, is the how.

How do you pray?

There are a number of answers, some people pray out loud, I find that this helps me stay on task and keeps my mind from wandering. Others have told me that they write out their prayers in a journal. I have done this and it also keeps my mind from wandering, but it also makes my hand hurt so I don't like doing that as much. But I have heard a ton of people who love this discipline. One thing I have come to love doing is prayer walks through my neighborhood. I get up in the morning and just take a stroll around the block, and as I do this, I pray out loud. I find that this keeps me awake, keeps my mind from wandering, and takes me out of my routine of being in doors to an environment that is not part of my daily environment, which is always good to do.

The second tip I would like to give you is what to pray?

Sometimes people just don't know what to say to God. I know I hard a really tough time with this, until a mentor of mine taught me, like Jesus taught his disciples, how to pray. He gave me step by step model of what to pray about, and I have used this ever since. It is very simple and it goes along with the adoration, submission, confession and supplication model we talked about yesterday.

So here we go.

Spend three minutes on each of these steps and you will pray for 15 minutes, and it seriously goes by like in a flash. It doesn't feel long at all.

At first you praise God, or adore God, by finishing this phrase: "God, you are...". This is the feminine side of God. Girls like to be told the attributes about them. Monica always asks me why I love her and she wants me to tell her all about what and who she is, that she is beautiful, fun, smart, that she has beautiful eyes and that she is just amazing. One way we can praise God is just by praising him for who he is, his attributes.

God you are...

Just

Merciful

loving

kind

big

jealous

holy

and on and on. Do this for three minutes and you will be amazed at all the things that you can think of that describes God to you. Next step is to finish the sentence, "God you have..." and praise God for something he has done. This is the masculine side of God. Men don't want to be told they have beautiful eyes, they want to hear that they are good at basketball or driving, or that they do good work, or as I have trained to Monica to say, that I am the best preacher ever. I like that. Anyway, This is another way we can just praise God for what he has done.

So finish the phrase, "God, you have..."

Created

brought the Israelites out of Egypt

saved me from a sinful life

called me to a specific ministry

came into this world to die for me

etc. and so forth. So after you finish the two phrases, "God, you are...", and "God, you have...", now it is time to just thank God for everything you can think of. Spend three minutes thanking God for...

your job, your family, your wife or husband, your kids, for saving you, for dying on the cross for you, for giving you the Holy Spirit, and on and on.

next, Confess. I see this section as moving from the adoration of God to the submission and confession to God. Here, confess your sins, your struggles, confess what you are still holding on to, whether it is material possessions, dreams, passions, your kids that you don't want to see go into the ministry, whatever it is, confess and totally submit your day to God.

After this comes the last step, now it is time to ask God for things. This does not mean it is time to bring our Christmas lists to Santa Clause, but that it is time to pray about our Granddad who is having health problems, or our neighbor or coworker who is not a Christian, or for a ministry we are a part of, or for the starving children in the Sudan, or the girls caught in sex-trafficking in Cambodia, or for the persecuted church in China, or for a missionary in Japan. This is the time to just ask God to move in the lives of you and others around you for, and here is the key, to pray for the advancement of his kingdom in the world. This is what our prayers should be focused on.

So here are the five steps:

1. God, you are...
2. God, you have...
3. God, thank you for...
4. God, I confess...
5. God, I ask...

This model has changed my prayer life from the "be" prayers. You know what the "be" prayers are right? when we just pray over and over again, "God, just BE with me, and help my granddad who is sick, just BE with him, and help the missionaries in Japan, just BE with them." This is all I ever prayed. But this model has moved me from the BE prayers to praying somewhat the same model of prayers that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Hopefully this is helpful, and hopefully God can use this model to change you and use you to advance his kingdom.