10 Tips for Praying

Sometimes we just need a few pointers to improve our skills. The 10 Tips for Praying will hopefully provide insight that will help you improve your prayer life and deepen your relationship with God. These tips are not "the best tips in the world" but are what I have found useful when assisting others to lay a foundation for deepening prayer. May God give you insight into how you can improve your prayer life though these tips!

1. Find a regular time and place to meet with God

Habits help our soul. When we form habits, such as a regular time and place to meet with God, our soul anticipates those times of encountering. Not only do our souls anticipate this habit, but they are also formed by them. Habits form us into who we will be, for good or bad. If we have a habit of turning on the t.v. every morning and allowing our soul to be shaped by this influence, then our soul will come to expect this type of formation and develop a growing expectation for t.v. (or any other habit that has the possibility of distracting us from God). Conversely, if we develop the habit of meeting with God for prayer, then our soul will not only anticipate this habit, but be formed by it. In a similar manner, Jesus developed a habit of consistent daily prayer with the Father. "Jesus often withdrew to places of solitude and prayed" (Luke 5:16). The habits we practice will form us and create a growing anticipation - for whatever habits we practice. Finding a regular time and place to meet with God helps us to pray better.

2. Minimize distractions

Ring. Buzz. Cool playback song.

Phone calls, texts, updates and emails are a favorite distraction of our prayer lives. Satan loves them too. Anything the world or Satan can use to pull us away from our time with God, will come our way every so often. I have found it helpful to silent my phone and turn it over so I will not be distracted or tempted. But everyone has different distractions. Whatever your distractions are, ask God to help you recognize them and then take action to minimize those distractions in your prayer life. Just like we appreciate when people give us their full attention when we have a conversation, I think God does too.

3. Incorporate what helps you encounter God

God has wired us all differently. This variety of wiring causes us to encounter and connect with God in different ways. For some, they connect with God through reading. This reading generates conversation (prayer) with God and encourages dialogue. For others, they connect through journaling. A friend of mine uses an interesting system. He writes his thoughts in black, Scripture in red and what he believes God is speaking to him in blue. A style like this can help a person to see their prayer life from different perspectives that illuminate what might otherwise be missed. Other people incorporate music, writing, nature and the list can go on. So whatever helps you encounter God, incorporate those practices into your prayer time with Him.

4. Don't just end prayer in your "closet"

When we meet with a friend for coffee, we are often fully engaged enjoying our time with him or her. We come to know our friend on deeper levels and are known by them. We soak up the time, but our meeting comes to an end and we go about the rest of our day completely forgetting about the time with our friend. Similarly, we can take this same habit into our prayer closet with God.  We encounter God in deep, magnificent ways which we wish could last forever. Yet life calls us to our vocations and we must be on our way. We look back as we leave God in the closet forgetting Him throughout the rest of our day. This should not be! God desires to walk with us through each moment once we leave our prayer closet. Our times in the prayer closet are important because we fully give ourselves to the Lord, meeting with Him without distraction, just like we would meet with a friend for coffee giving her or him our full attention. So after meeting with God in your closet, invite Him with you for the rest of the day by practicing His presence.

5. Mix things up, keep it fresh

Habits can become routine and routine can become legalistic, without the Spirit. When we become legalistic, our relationship is no longer relationship and it becomes brittle, stale and tasteless. Just like we need to mix routine things in our lives once in a while, so too do we need to mix things up and keep it fresh in our relationship with God. For me, when I do not feel like following my regular pattern, I leave my home to go on a prayer walk and commune with God in this manner. This helps change things up a little so routine does not lead to legalism, which is devoid of the Spirit. Consider what can mix things up or keep it fresh for you in your relationship with God. You can always ask God how He would like to spend the time, too! I'm sure He has a couple ideas.

6. Remember why you are meeting

What keeps us from legalism is to remember why we are meeting with God. So many times in the Old Testament, the Israelites would forget the great and loving things the Lord had done for them. So constantly the prophets and other leaders would call Israel to remember the Lord and all that He had done for them. When the Israelites started to forget what God had done, they began to turn away to other gods and ways of living that God did not desire for His people. Similarly, we must remember why we are meeting with God. We are meeting to invest in our relationship with God. God has always been about relationship from the creation of Adam and Eve to the return of Christ when He establishes the new heaven and new earth. We must remind ourselves we are meeting with God to grow our relationship with Him and keep this motive of relationship the foremost motive of our prayer time.

7. Pray with others

When you bring several small flames together over a pile of wood, the little flames unite to create a bigger flame which eventually engulfs the whole pile of wood. In the same manner, as we meet with other Christians for prayer, our fire for God unites and imparts greater passion to one another. We can be encouraged to continue on as we see other sisters and brothers fighting the good fight to remain faithful to Jesus. We can spend time praying for each other and being prayed for. Prayer in community is powerful. It releases greater spiritual impact by bringing the small flames together for united and common purpose. We catch the fire for prayer by being around others who can impart that fire to us.

8. Don't just pray, intercede

All intercession is prayer, but not all prayer is intercession. Prayer is having a conversation with God. You share and talk with God, while He then speaks and shares with you. But intercessory prayer is advocating on behalf of another or a situation that needs God's intervention. This concept is found all throughout Scripture... some include Moses (Deuteronomy 9:13-29), Esther (Esther 4:16), Jesus (Hebrews 7:24-25), Epaphrus (Colossians 4:12)... but what I want to focus on is Ezekiel 22:30:

I looked for a person among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none...

God is looking for those who will give themselves to intercessory prayer and intercede for the purposes of God in the situations and lives of others that God longs to intervene in. Many times, God will not do anything, but through prayer (intercession). We are called to pray. By interceding, you are partnering with God's prayer assignments He has for you.

9. Pray in the Spirit

Sometimes this biblical phrase carries controversy... pray in the Spirit (Romans 8:26-27 & Ephesians 6:18). There are many who think praying in the Spirit only means to pray in tongues. I would argue that not all Christians have the gift of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30) and thus not every Christian could "pray in the Spirit." I would propose to pray in the Spirit means praying according to what the Spirit leads and guides you to pray, rather than praying what you think you should pray out of your own wisdom and flesh. Thus praying in the Spirit is asking the Holy Spirit how we should pray and then praying as He puts the words in our hearts and minds.

10. Pray for more prayer

Once you taste and see that prayer is good, just as Jesus had... Jesus often withdrew to places of solitude and prayed... you will long for more. Our desire to pray and any other spiritual desire comes from God (Ephesians 2:8-9). This means we cannot generate any spiritual desire in ourselves, it can only come from God. We can then be encouraged to pray for a greater desire to pray and seek His face.

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Jesus, just as the disciples asked you to teach them to pray, would you teach us to pray that we may know you more. Amen.