How is your prayer life today? Do you often find that prayer is not easy? Do you struggle to find the words to say? Does your mind start to wander and your thoughts get distracted when you pray? Do you find it difficult to pray for more than a couple of minutes? (I am preaching to myself!)
Not everyone can pray like Moses or Elijah did, but we are ALL called to be a people of prayer. So don’t get discouraged! Here are some good tips to help you (and me) in the time of prayer.
“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul. I cried to Him with my mouth, and He was extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the LORD will not hear. But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me!” Psalm 66:16-20
I think the first and most powerful tip from these verses is to pray out loud. Look at how many references there are to vocalizing prayer…declare, cried with my mouth, extolled with my tongue, the voice of my prayer. Our vocal prayers are powerful for they bless the Lord and they put the devil to flight! When you pray aloud it helps your mind to stay focused and your thoughts to be organized. I often am surprised at how much longer I spend in prayer when I am literally “talking” with the Lord.
The second tip is to take a few moments to say what the Lord has done for you and to praise Him for those blessings. It helps to set our heart in a positive mood for when we bring our requests to God. Hint: God loves to be buttered up in advance with pleasant compliments just as much as you do!
The third tip is to always search your heart for sins that may be hiding in dark corners. Confess those sins and clean out all the little cobwebs that get in your spirit. Unconfessed sins are the biggest hindrance to getting our prayers past the ceiling.
When you have done these things, then you are ready to make your prayers and supplications known to God.
A fourth tip is to pray Scriptures. Do you not know what to say? The psalms are divinely inspired prayers and praises from men to God. You can choose a Psalm and pray it out loud. It may also bring to mind some things in your own life that you can add to your prayers.
And finally, be confident in your prayers. You can know for sure that God hears our every prayer. He will never turn our prayers away or leave our prayers unanswered. And He will never withhold His mercy from helping you when you come to Him with a clean heart filled with loud praise and thanksgiving.
Bless the Lord today with your voice! Pray to Him with all your heart. And be sure to declare to Him and others all the good thing that He has done for you today! And as you develop this prayer habit, you will find that you look forward to the sweet time of communication with your Lord.