Why and How Do I Pray?

Every relationship flourishes through communication. While actions can speak louder than words, our friends, boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse, and children still love to hear with words how much we love them. When it comes to parents or a significant other, they love to hear how important they are to us, how much we depend on them, and how thankful we are for them. We love to see actions that prove it, but we also long for words that state it. 

God is the same.
He longs for us to communicate with Him. As we discussed, He knows what we are doing in life; He knows how we are feeling; He knows what our needs are. Our actions tell God how important (or not important) our God-Me relationship is. Just like a spouse knows what our little facial expressions mean, what sorts of silly habits we do, and what our individual quirks are, God knows everything about us. But He still wants to talk WITH us! What kind of relationship can you have if there is no communication?

Communicating with God is known as prayer. So what exactly does this involve?
Prayer is not just us asking God for help. When we pray, we are engaging in a two-way conversation with God, where He hears our prayers and where we can learn to listen to what He might have to say in response. 

God's response to prayer was a hot topic for our discussion. If God so badly wants us to communicate with Him, why won't He answer our prayers? We agreed that God's answers to our prayers can be "Yes", "No", or "Not Yet". The difficulty is that if a prayer is not answered, we tend to not know why. This comes down to trusting that God knows what is best for you. However, Nicky also points us to several verses that tell us our prayers may not be answered if there is:
- Unconfessed sin
- Unforgiveness
- Disobedience
- Wrong motives 
- Misunderstanding of God's will
- Wrong timing

Even if something works out that we prayed for, how do we know if it's God answering our prayers or simply coincidence that everything worked out? I think it really does depend on your outlook on life. I dare you to start heartfully praying for the little things in life. Do these prayers get answered? You may find that things in the world are aligning too well for it to be coincidence. Plus, what harm can there really be in praying a little? 

As we shared our personal stories together, some of us noted that some of our prayers did not get answered, and looking back, we are so thankful for that. Perhaps what we thought was best was not really in our best interest or in the best interest of others. Nicky reminded us that God's answer is always in love; He knows what is best for us. During our discussion, I thought of a line from a country song: "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers." You can listen to it here: Unanswered Prayers: Video and Lyrics.

People do pray in different ways and Nicky Gumbel reminds us of who we are talking to when we pray. Some people pray, "Hey you, Jesus, my homeboy..." (just imagine the accent, I have actually heard this), and while I do not want to disrespect them, we must remember that God is God - perfect, holy, just, loving, compassionate. And when we pray, we are praying to the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit. God deserves our utmost respect. At the same time, however, we should not paint God as being so holy that He is unreachable for us or unwilling to talk to us. Remember, when Jesus prayed, He prayed, "Abba", which means daddy. Think about when you were little (or maybe still now) when you called your father, daddy. Yes, we respect our father, but we still have that intimate relationship with him where we can depend on him and ask for help, knowing that he loves us deeply. The exact same is true for God. 


Therefore, we should be modelling Jesus' prayers. If you are not familiar with the Lord's Prayer, I suggest you look up Matthew 6: 9-13 - or the photo here. This prayer is a fantastic guideline for how we should pray, whether you pray it verbatim, break it down and expand, or use similar topics. Whether you have decided to just start praying today, or whether you have been praying for some years now, I suggest the following acronyms to help guide you.

Prayer Tips:

Adoration                             Praise
Confession                           Repent
Thanksgiving                       Ask
Supplication                         Yield


If you are up for a challenge, this is for you:
1. Start a prayer journal. Record your prayers and see how often God does answer your prayers.
2. Pray for the impossible. Be adventurous in your prayers - don't doubt what God can really do.
3. Be honest. God knows how you are feeling. Lay it all out, you'll be surprised at the results.



Photo Credit: http://angchronicles.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/lords_prayer.gif