P.R.A.Y.E.R. - Part 1 of 7

Over the next couple of months we are going to focus on the topic of prayer. After the intro today, we are going to go through 6 key components of prayer contained in the acronym P.R.A.Y.E.R.

One of the more impactful books that I have read is Tim Keller’s book simply entitled Prayer. It is quite a thick book and I remember when I bought it thinking - how could there possibly be this much on “prayer” to write about? Well, that probably revealed more about me than I would like to admit. Ha.

The truth is that everyone struggles in their prayer life from time to time. I found a list of the 12 most common reasons why people say that their prayer lives aren’t what they should be:

1.We don’t think that we have time to pray

2.We don’t think that it is important or makes a difference

3. No one ever taught me how - feels awkward

4. You’re mad at God

5. You’re afraid of God – His will vs. your will for your life

6. Don’t want to admit to God what we really want

7. So many things to pray for, don’t know where to start   

8. A recurring or past sin that haunts our life

9. Feels too passive - would rather “do” something 

10. Don’t need anything 

11. We forget

12. Fall asleep or mind wanders away

Any of these sound familiar? I suspect that every Christian would connect with at least a few of these.

Well, the good news is that our prayer lives can dramatically improve and the result of that will be a deeper walk with the Lord. Like anything else in life, it requires us to be more intentional but it is most certainly with reach.

A consistent prayer life begins with a time, a place and a plan. That is certainly not to say that you can’t and shouldn’t pray at different times and different places throughout the day/week but we should all have our “go to” times/places for the core of our prayer lives. Without this, we simply won’t we consistent. It’s only when we get to the point that we view this “appointment” with God as our most important one of the day - that we can truly transform our prayer life.

In terms of a plan, I believe that having a written daily plan in your phone/Bible is the only way to really cover all the areas that you want to pray about over the course of the week. I learned this 15-20 years ago and have found it to be spot on. While I pray for you daily, each of you know that I have a special day I specifically pray for you. Along with this, I have a list of 3-4 other things written down to focus on each day. This is so much better than trying to rattle though your head all of the things that you know that you should be praying about. You can always add to or modify your list but it will help tremendously with keeping some organization to your prayer life.

Write down your prayer plan today and decide when and where you want to have your daily appointment with God.

Stay hungry,

Big E