October 23, 2020
(Methodically updated September 2024)
You can’t pray. You can’t get started, can’t focus. But you want to. Here’s exactly what you need. Prayer methods you can start today.
(This is #4 in a series about Prayer. Links to the rest are at the end.)
ARE YOU SEEKING PRAYER METHODS?
This is an honest question.
Why? You might not be. You might be worried, but not exactly seeking prayer methods.
Because there’s a little “jump-over” place between “I’m stuck in a no-prayer season” and “I want answers.”
This is the “jump-over” that sometimes we just won’t do. We say there’s a problem, but the leap toward an answer requires something from us. Maybe a little risk, maybe a little energy, or something else.
Sometimes the answer is just over the creek (or is it a river?), in sight, and almost in your grasp. But there’s something slightly unpleasant about getting up to go after it. Something risky about venturing over.
And something almost annoying about the voice that calls us.
The Annoying Call
Do you ever hear Canadian geese honking to one another as they fly over? They are going from lake to lake, and making all that noise. It’s awful.😣 It sounds harsh and full of effort and is just not a sound I would ever make on purpose.
But if you know anything about geese, you know this is the sound God gave them, and that they use it to encourage each other. So to them it’s beautiful. It’s happy, and energizing, and full of hope. Who knew, right?
They love to hear it, and it nudges them toward their destination.
I’m okay with the geese honking each morning as they fly over, because now I know what they’re saying. And I know it’s about love and about encouragement and about getting somewhere.
Maybe the sound still startles me, especially if I’m outdoors and they are close. 😯 But I quickly remember its purpose, and I can actually smile.
You know where I’m going with this: To appreciate what we are hearing, we have to interpret it and get the whole picture. Then we can understand the purpose and enjoy it.
THE MESSAGES OF HELP
When somebody tells me I need to improve something, at first it’s a honk. A sound that I don’t want to hear. One that I don’t want to understand. It’s harsh and unwelcome. It tends to annoy me.
Sigh. But I know about the honk. I need to interpret it, get the whole picture, understand the purpose, enjoy, and appreciate it.
I need the help, I just don’t always want it. I don’t want to “jump over.”
What about you? Is the honk telling you there’s something to hear?
Even if you hear it, that’s not all, is it? It’s the part that comes after hearing the honk. After accepting it, after responding…
Once you jump over, you’re on the other side. The side of doing something. It’s a commitment, an obligation, even. And there is gonna be a price. Something will be expected of you.
And honestly, you’d usually rather not.
YOU’RE ALREADY OVERLOADED
You are. Every waking minute is already claimed. Tasks are never really finished, people around you don’t quite get the full measure of what they need from you. Time is a huge constraint.
Then there’s money. Well, actually there’s not money. Your budget is as modest as you can get it, and still there’s that sigh of relief each time you’re able to pay a bill. It just seems like the expenses and the income should be a better match than they are.
It’s hard to keep it all going when it seems like the people around you are buying things, going on cruises, relaxing, reading books. Or trying new makeup techniques and taking beautiful selfies for their social media in their spare time. (Their what?)
You avoid those people. Because you can’t keep up with all that.
You know your life. You gave somebody a handful of M&Ms in their car seat for breakfast. As soon as you got to work you realized you forgot to turn on the crockpot at home. With the food already in it. When you drop your head in defeat you see your unmatched socks. (Oh well, chin up. It’s 8 am and there’s a whole day of disasters ahead!)
This is your life. You just can’t join the brag-fest. You’re overloaded.
Why would you seek out a new task, even if it’s a good one?
Wouldn’t that just add to the crazymakers? 
No!
(Wait. Did she just say “No?”)
I did. Are you surprised? It won’t.
Here’s why:
YOU DON’T HAVE TO GIVE UP TIME OR MONEY TO PRAY.
You can give up those things. And maybe one day you will. But right now, you don’t have to.
If you were here last week, you saw the post on using Scripture before praying. And the week before that, the post on brief prayers for each day of the week.
And before that, the difficulty focusing… Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The two time-saving posts.
Those last two posts were to give you a glorious glimpse of something: that in five minutes or less each day you can have a prayer life that can be built upon. A rich faithful prayer life.
And we need that. Because we tend to allow prayer only for needs.
PRAYING FOR NEEDS
There is no shortage of needs. Not just the needs of this day, but the ongoing heart needs of the people suffering around us. Hunger, poverty, unrest, fear, grief, illness, and so much more.
In a little Google experiment, I searched for the October monthly observations. You know, the “October is ___ awareness month.” The list is huge. Among them: Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, SIDS Awareness Month.
These (and some of the others) certainly hit a nerve with me, multiple nerves, actually. Brought pictures of people to mind instantly. Awareness means we give it our attention, even if only for a few seconds.
Want to know something? This type of thought process can be overwhelming to most believers. Just so much need and despair in the world. Did you feel it just now when you read all that stuff? The discouragement came, right?
This is another jump-over place.
The overwhelming need around us, even in our own lives, can just be so crushing that we can’t get to our prayer place.
Facing the need, acknowledging it, and asking for help — this is hard. It’s discouraging.
How can we even begin to pray when there’s so much to cover?
Let’s order just one more cup of coffee and hammer out a little more truth. Why?
Because we’re trying to get to the point we can say “Nailed it!” and be victorious.
To get there, and we will, you have to ask this question:
EXACTLY WHAT DO WE PRAY FOR?
You can pray for ONE THING. Just one.
Wait. One thing?
After we’ve covered a multitude of issues that make up the reasons to pray, and all the reasons we find not to, there’s just one thing?
You’re probably ready for a chance to say “Nailed it!“
It’s right here.
What do we pray for?
We pray for a deeper relationship with Christ.
That’s it.
You could pray for that alone every day of your life, and find the riches of the kingdom.
Here’s one look at where that prayer could take you:
A deeper relationship with Christ opens your eyes to everything you were missing with the blinders on. You find out about yourself, the people around you, and the world around you. You find out about the Church. A deep caring will awaken in your heart, a love for God and his people. A hunger calls you to open your Bible and find out what God said to you.
Because the Bible was written for you. Not the general crowd, not to get something off his chest. The Bible is God’s love letter to the person who is you. Like remembering a love letter from someone in your life, and opening it up to enjoy again. When you read it, the Bible will love you. The Word is written to you.
Still, here’s what’s hard:
Taking that step of sitting down, face to face with the Lord. The “welcome back” time.
If you missed it before, please go back to week two, the jump start and the 11 cups of coffee. You know what’s holding you back? Is it something like embarrassment?
I know. Feeling embarrassed is the worst. Something like shame causes us to retreat. To protect ourselves from scrutiny or judgment.
We can predict what anyone else would say if you just showed up after a long time. “Oh, so now you’ve got five seconds for me?” You don’t want to hear it.
Hey — Come here.
Listen: You know what God sees? That everybody comes back. Everybody drops something and has to go back and start over.
This is what he does every day all day. He welcomes his people back. The unexcused absences, the fence testers, the wayward souls, the procrastinators.
And you.
And me.
What does he want? For you to come back.
It just seems too simple. But there’s an explanation.
Remember the story of the Prodigal Son? Look at this from Luke 11:20:
while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
This picture. I never want to forget it. My Father, running to embrace me.
God wants us to return, and gives us a lot of room and time to reach that place. He is expecting us, and our days have already been seen by him.
God’s love surpasses anything we can do or imagine.
God is not limited by human emotion, the way we are with our petty need to chalk up what we’re owed.
God isn’t going to be late for an appointment because you stood him up.
God knows all your secrets, all your dumb mistakes, and all your excuses. And still,…
He. Wants. You.
God wants you. In a world where often you think no one does.
There’s nobody you could have wanting you that would exceed that honor.
God wants you.
You can meet him in your next prayer, and be welcomed into his arms.
And getting there is so easy. You can pray the prayer above. You can continue what we’ve picked up the last two weeks. And if you want more…
Here are two things you can do right now.
TWO THINGS:
- TRY A PRAYER METHOD.
- ASK SOMEONE A QUESTION.
TRY A PRAYER METHOD
This is an amazing way to think about your prayers. A prayer method.
Are you reluctant to use one of the acronyms, or a planned method? But still feeling awkward because you don’t have a way to get started?
Ask the disciples about that!
They had our questions, and Jesus gave them a model prayer. He didn’t roll his eyes, didn’t rebuke them. And he didn’t say to pray only these words; he just gave them a structure to follow.
A structure that makes sense. He gave them a prayer method. This means…
Using a method/structure is Biblical.
Isn’t it a comfort, that somehow the people spending every day with Jesus asked for this? If it had been here in Georgia, they might have said: “Hey, how’d you do that?” And Jesus told them, because he knew they needed help. Like we do, right?
So today you get a printable with SIX different prayer methods (or models), all consistent with the one Jesus taught.
I’ll warn you: It’s a page full. It’s a single resource for six different things. The only way you can really use this is to pick one. Really. Just one at a time. Whichever one you seem to lock on first, try it, and for now ignore the others.
Once you’ve chosen one, rewrite the acronym letters somewhere. And try using it. You can use one sentence for each letter. That’s all you need to do.
If you want to try a different one each day, by all means do! But don’t try to look at the page and do them all. I tried that and it’s way too distracting.
Please take a second to print the list of prayer methods, and add it to the prayer prompts and the Scripture you already have.
Just to be clear — you can add this to what you’re doing, or you can just do this.
The point of this week in our progress is to accept the prayer instructions in the Bible.
And here’s the second suggestion:
ASK SOMEONE A QUESTION
Ask someone this question today:
What is keeping you up at night right now?
(Ummm… This should be someone you know. Not a random stranger. 😄)
Maybe there’s a little halt in the conversation, because that’s really personal. You don’t need to insist on the answer being spoken. If you know there was a thought about it, that’s all you need. So tell them they don’t have to say it out loud. (I never want my care for someone to feel like prying, or make someone feel vulnerable because they shared something they didn’t want to. )
Then offer to pray for this need.
- Either pray with the person right at that moment,
- or pray when you are alone,
- or text your prayer to the person so they will know what you have prayed.
- Or write it in a card, and mail it!
We have this technology that allows us to send an instant letter to a friend. Let’s use it for good!
ARE WE FINISHED?
Hmmm.
(That almost sounds like Mary Poppins — “Are you quite finished?”)
The answer is: Not quite. For today, yes. But there’s just a little more next week.
MORE RESOURCES
This has been such a wonderful growth journey for me. Really connecting with the most basic purposes of prayer.
It especially helped to see that others found that relying on prayer methods was something that helped them to grow their prayer life. One in particular was Kim, who wrote Six Ways to Spice Up Your Prayer Life at Salvaged Living. She has several of the methods on our sheet, plus more. Once again, this is the exact article I wish I had written. So encouraging.
Another place with plenty to say about prayer is Prayer & Possibilities. So helpful, and so much to choose from.
Aren’t you glad so many people are sharing their ideas? It’s not something we often think about, but for anything that’s important, we should take the time to examine how we got to this point and take a look back at the original goal.
WHAT JESUS TAUGHT:
When you read the prayer below, does it somehow feel comfortable, like a familiar place you have been before? There’s something important to note among all these ideas: You can’t get any closer to following instructions than to say this prayer.
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom
and the power
and the glory forever. Amen.
Look at all we’ve done today. We’ve packed your suitcase for the prayer journey. Anytime you open it, you’ll be able to find something you can use.
So pin this (if you’re on Pinterest), or e-mail it to yourself, or bookmark it, or leave a trail of breadcrumbs. And next week I’ll have one final chapter.
Here’s your list of prayer methods.
Just click on the picture for Prayer Plan Week 3 to download/print.
And go back to the last few weeks if you missed those, and get your collection complete.
Click on the image above to print.
Our Prayer Series So Far:
How To Pray When You Can’t Focus
How to Jump Start Your Prayer Life
How to Add Prayer To Your Busy Day
And now today, Prayer Methods.
After this,
How To Pray In Public without nervousness.
There’s another post, with a printable list of prayers focusing on our Nation and the Church: How To Pray For The Election.
You’re still here. I thank you. This is a lot to read, a lot to consider, and (if you’re willing) possibly will feel like a lot to do.
For today,
- Hear the honk. 😉
- Jump over.
- Pray for a deeper relationship with Christ.
- And remember that God wants you.
Thank you for visiting! At GFP company is always welcome!
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Are you on Pinterest? That is a crazy fun place! You can find so many helpful things. Take a look at what I’ve saved for you! A lot of things that never make it to the blog. Here are my Pinterest pins, and I have lots of categories/boards if you’re looking for something specific.
-Grammye
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Such great info and advice, thank you for referring to the prayer model list I have – I hope it helps someone in need of a prayer nudge! Blessings, Kim
Kim! Thank you for stopping by the porch! Your article was so comprehensive I had to share it. You included so much, like praying for enemies, keeping a prayer journal, and using a smartphone to pray for certain events or appointments. So helpful. As far as your hope — it already has!