Called to a relationship

What is prayer?

So, let’s start by looking at the what – what do we mean by prayer? That may seem like an obvious question. Most of us have prayed at some time. Even people who are unsure that God exists pray. When we need something or things become desperate, God is often the one that we turn to.

At its most basic, prayer is simply talking to God. And it is often about asking for something. But if we think that prayer is mainly about asking for things, it can mean that we come to prayer with a couple of ideas. One is that prayer is just for the times when I am needy or desperate. And another is that prayer is just a process to get things from God. That means prayer is about us asking. And if God doesn’t answer, he has let us down or doesn’t even exist. God becomes a sort of heavenly vending machine who is there to give me what I need and to patch up things when they go wrong. 

This view of prayer can let us down badly. It doesn’t do justice either to what prayer can be like or who God is. The Bible paints a much deeper and richer picture of prayer and a much bigger picture of God. Prayer is not just an opportunity to ask for things. It is central to developing a deep and intimate relationship with God. When we engage in prayer, we draw close to God. Like any good relationship there is backward and forward. Imagine a friendship where every time you got together all you did was pull out a list of things you would like to see done. Friendship sometimes involves asking. But it is also a place where sometimes we express our gratitude for what they have done for us. And sometimes our appreciation and admiration for who they are. A good friendship can also be a safe place where we can feel free to admit our failures and experience love and forgiveness. And a place where we feel able to share our highest joys and deepest fears.

God of course is much more than a friend. God loves us more deeply than the closest and most loyal friend. And because of that, we can come to God and have a conversation that contains all those things. The hard thing is that sometimes God can seem so big and distant. Who am I to bring the little things that happened during my day to the creator of the universe? Or how can I dare express to God my frustration and doubts and anger?

But the Bible tells us that God longs to hear us (Psalm 116:1-2). Prayer is a time where we can express our gratitude and appreciation. It is a time when we can bring the smallest detail of our day and know that God is interested. And bring the largest of fears and doubts and sadness and know that God can handle whatever we bring. As we grow to know God, prayer becomes not just a place to bring our requests, but a place of comfort and security and refreshment. It is a place where we can sit and enjoy the deep love that God has for us.

So that is a little of what prayer is about, what about the next question – why should we pray?

Why should we pray?

Prayer is part of following Jesus

The first and possibly most obvious reason to engage in prayer is that we are told to. Jesus encouraged the disciples to “always pray and not give up.” (Luke 18:1). He told them to ask things from God (John 16:24; John 15:7; Mark 11:24) and promised that God would answer (Matthew 7:7-8). And it wasn’t just Jesus. In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul urged the church to “keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” (Ephesians 6:18) and the church at Colossae to “continue steadfastly in prayer” (Colossians 4:2).

And people like Jesus and Paul didn’t just tell people they should pray. They were models of people who prayed themselves. In fact, the Bible is full of examples of people praying. Jesus thought prayer was so important that in the middle of an incredibly busy ministry preaching to the crowds and healing the sick he would go up into the hills and spend all night in prayer (Luke 6:12; Mark 1:35). We also see in Paul’s letters how he fervently prayed for the churches that he was writing to (Ephesians 1:15-22; Colossians 1:9-14).

Prayer does something

But there is something behind both being told and seeing people who pray that gives us an even greater reason to pray. Both of these are saying loud and clear - prayer does something. When Jesus told the disciples to pray, it was usually accompanied by a promise – that God would answer (Matthew 7:7-11; John 16:24; John 15:7). And the example of people praying suggests that they believed they weren’t just wasting their time. They fully expected that God would do something in response to their prayers.

But believing that God answers our prayers raises a natural question. Does God always answer our prayers? And if He doesn’t, which prayers does God answer? Most of know from experience that God doesn’t answer every prayer that we make. What do we do with that?

There is no simple answer. As we have just seen, we are invited to pray and promised that God will answer those prayers (Matthew 7:7-8). But from other passages, it doesn’t seem that it is an open-ended promise. We are also given guidelines on what to pray. For example, we are told to pray according to God’s will (1 John 5:14; Matthew 6:10). That suggests that we won’t just get everything that we ask for. And we are told that God is a good father who gives good things to his children (Matthew 7:11). Again, good parents don’t give their children everything they ask for. On a very practical level, if God answered all our prayers, the weather and the traffic would become chaotic!

A bit later, we will look at how we can pray according to God’s will. But the takeaway message here is that we are promised that prayer is effective. That doesn’t mean we will receive everything that we ask for. God is not under our control. But God delights to hear our prayers and give us good things. Our job is to pray. We can then leave the rest to God, trusting that God knows better than we do what is best.

Prayer provides an opportunity to grow close to God

Believing that God will answer is central to the why of prayer. But, as we explored earlier, prayer is much more than an opportunity to bring our needs and requests to God. Prayer is also about knowing God. It is a time when we grow deeper in our relationship with God. We can come to a place where we experience God’s forgiveness, grace, freedom and love. It is a place where we can move from knowing about God in our heads to experiencing Him in our hearts.

But for some of us, growing closer to God may not sound all that attractive. It very much depends on our image of God. Do we see God as a strict judge or harsh schoolteacher who wants us to come to their office and admit everything that we have done wrong? Do we see God as someone who knows us inside out and is disappointed with what they see?

If our image of God is of someone like this, chances are we will have no appetite for prayer. We may do it out of a sense of duty or obedience, but there will be little joy. And there will be little sense of the wonder and privilege of coming before an almighty but loving God.

If that is the case, we may need to go back to what we talked about in the previous article. To engage with the Bible and to spend time soaking in the boundless enormity of God’s love and grace towards us. When we know God in that way, prayer becomes more than a discipline or duty. It becomes a time where we can enjoy being in the presence of One who loves us deeply – even more than we can understand. We can bask in the grace and goodness and love of someone who delights in us.

We pray because we come to someone who sees our faults and failures and meets them with grace and forgiveness. Someone who is never surprised or shocked by our worst failures and loves us despite them. We pray because we come to someone who listens and cares for us through our doubts and fears and sadness. Someone who is never overwhelmed or can’t handle our questions and grief and anxiety.

So, the practice of prayer is central to our relationship with God. But our relationship with God is also central to our practice of prayer. If you find it difficult and dull and lifeless to pray, take some time to think about how you see the God you are praying to. If we believe that coming to God in prayer is the safest, surest, most loving place we can go - the place to rediscover our solid ground and footing - it is more likely that it will be a place that we find time to go to.

How to pray

So, we have been invited into a relationship with God, the creator of the universe who loves and delights in us in a way that is hard to fully understand. And as part of that relationship, we have the privilege of being able to talk to our creator God in prayer. Let’s now focus then on the how. How do we pray?

A time to confess and repent

First prayer is a time of confession and repentance. It is a time when we can bring our faults, our mistakes, and our brokenness to God. Not to dwell on what we have done wrong or to beat ourselves up. Just the opposite. We are promised forgiveness (1 John 1:9). We don’t come before a school principal or a parent waiting to dish out punishment. We come before a God of love and grace. We can bring our faults and failures to God to unload them, to ask for help to change and go out again lighter and freer.

And confession and repentance are not limited to the things we have done wrong. It is a time to share what we are struggling with - our frustrations and doubts and uncertainties and even our anger. We can’t hide them from God, and we don’t need to hide them. If we look at the book of Psalms, which are not just songs but conversations with God, there are many times of anger and sorrow and doubt. We also can talk and cry and even shout out to God. God is big enough to handle our questions and anger. God longs for us to be close to Him no matter what we are going through. Those times are not times to avoid God. They are the times we most need to be close to God.

A time to praise and give thanks to God

As well as confession and repentance, prayer is also a time to rejoice - to give praise and thanks to God. Again, if we look at the book of Psalms, they are full of rejoicing in thanks and praise – even in the midst of doubt and fear. We praise God for His goodness and mercy and power and authority and majesty and all the things that we learn of Him in the Bible and the world around us.

And we thank God for all the things that He has given us. Following on from our time of confession and repentance, we can start with His grace and forgiveness - that we are made clean and free. We can thank Him for the good things he has given us physically – for food and clothing and somewhere to sleep. For friends and the good people in our lives. And we can thank Him for the good things He has given us spiritually. For new life. For abundant life. For the freedom and peace and hope that we have been given through the good news of Jesus.

There will be times of grief and sadness when it is hard to praise and thank God from our hearts. But even in those times - and even more so in those times – it is good to spend time to reflect on the good things that we still enjoy or have enjoyed in the past. It can draw us close to God and help to relieve some of the hurt and sadness that we feel.

A time to request things from God

And of course, as well as repentance and rejoicing, prayer is a time to request and ask for things from God. We ask for ourselves. There is nothing too small that we can ask for. The most famous prayer of all teaches us to pray for even the bread for the day (Matthew 6:11). And there is nothing too big. In fact, the great thing is that God is not limited by our prayers. Even when there are things that seem too big to us, God is able to do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

And we don’t just ask things for ourselves, we ask things for others. People around us have all sorts of needs. We can bring all of those before God. We can pray for their health, their financial needs, their grief and sadness and fear, their loneliness, their need to hear the good news of Jesus and follow Him, their growth in spiritual maturity. There is no limit to what we can pray for people. Even if we can’t serve people directly, we can serve them through prayer.

Bringing it all together

So, prayer is much more than just asking God for what we need or want. It is a time just to be with God, to talk over what is in our own heart and to seek to know what is on God’s heart. It is spending time praising God for who He is. For expressing our gratitude for what He has given us and to look for guidance and comfort. And sometimes it is a time of expressing our anger, our confusion, our sadness, our disappointment and our frustration.

God is there waiting to hear us and to be with us. He knows what is on our hearts. It is no time for putting on a show or acting holy. We can be who we are. We can say how we feel. God is our loving father who delights in our presence. We can enjoy that privilege.

Putting prayer into practice

How then do we put prayer into practice? There are a number of ways that Christians over the centuries have engaged in prayer and there is no one right way. In this article, we will explore a simple way to pray that brings together the main parts of prayer that we have looked at. This will help provide a foundation of prayer for those who are looking for a way to pray. But for those who have a good foundation of prayer already, we will also explore other ways that we can engage in prayer.

Building a foundation

The first step is to work out when and where to pray. There is no right place or time. We can pray at any time and in any place. We can pray as we sit, as we walk, in the bus going to work or in our room. However, to help make it a regular practice, many people find it helpful to set aside a time each day. As with reading the Bible, this can be morning or evening. Many people combine their Bible reading and prayer time into what is sometimes called a “quiet time” or “devotions”. Our Bible reading can naturally lead into prayer as one of the responses that we make to what we have read.

The second step is thinking about how to pray. As we just explored, prayer has many aspects. It includes confession and repentance, praise and thanksgiving, and asking for our own needs and the needs of others. Therefore, having some way to structure our prayers to include each of these different aspects can be helpful. There are several tools that help do this. We will focus on a simple one here but you can find other tools that people find helpful in the Additional Resources section of the website.

The prayer tool that we will look at here is another 3 Rs– Repent, Rejoice, Request. We first of all come to God and repent of anything in our life that we are aware of and need to confess before God. We then rejoice, giving thanks and praise to God for the good things that he has given us either recently or in general. Then we request – we ask God for things on our hearts – for ourselves and others.