Read an Excerpt
Introduction
Prayer has been one of the greatest challenges of my Christian life. While I know I’m commanded to pray, encouraged to pray, invited to pray, and often compelled to pray, I have still struggled with prayer. My struggle has centered primarily on three areas.
First, I have struggled with concentration—why is it that as soon as I bow my head to pray, my thoughts start to scatter? Instead of truly communicating with God, I think about what I need to fix for supper or what I’m going to wear to a special event or when I can schedule coffee with a friend. Or I’m so tired that I simply doze in the quietness of the hour.
The second area I have struggled with is consistency—making time daily to meet with the Lord in prayer. How often I have been distracted by my chirping phone or interrupted by my dog needing to go out or so busy I jump out of bed at the last minute and into my day without any real prayer at all.
And I have struggled with content—just knowing what to say and how to say it.
As I have sought victory in these three areas, I have asked God to give me solutions. And He has! Setting my alarm for an earlier time—allowing me to meet with the Lord before I begin my day—has helped with consistency. And writing down my prayers has helped not only with content but also with concentration.
In this volume you’ll find some of the prayers I have written. These prayers do not cover every crisis or cry, desire or delight, longing or lack, struggle or success, or a myriad of other issues I have taken to the Lord in prayer over the years. But I hope you’ll find these prayers a helpful resource to refresh your own conversations with God. Especially if you, too, have struggled with prayer.
While I can’t help you set your alarm, I wonder whether reading some of the prayers I have written will help you with your own concentration and content in prayer. As you read them, you may want to make note of the four elements I try to include in my prayers: worship, confession, thanksgiving, and intercession.
I have made a habit of beginning my prayers by worshipping God for who He is, because as I focus on Him, it’s amazing how my own needs and problems are reduced in size compared with who He is. Then I look at myself and confess the sin that now seems obvious, revealed by the light of His holiness and glory. God has used a list of sins to effectively guide me deeper into confession. I have included this list as a resource for you in Appendix B. I do not beat myself up over my sin, but instead, once I have named it for what it is, I move into thanksgiving to the One who has forgiven and cleansed me. At this point, I am ready to present my requests and intercede for others. While not every prayer includes each of these four ele-ments, you will recognize the pattern. I have left some of the pages in this volume blank so you can write down your own prayers, using this pattern if it’s helpful.
And remember, the purpose of prayer is not just to get answers. The purpose is to develop an intimate, per-sonal relationship with the One who loves you, gave Himself for you, and longs for you to live in the light of His presence.
My prayer for you as you read this volume is that God will use my struggle with prayer to help you over-come yours. And that, as a result, you will be drawn nearer to the heart of God.
The apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian followers of Jesus, and I have prayed these words for you:
For this reason
I kneel before the Father,
from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you,
being rooted and established in love,
may have power,
together with all the saints,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:14–19
