How to pray

For Christians, prayer is about spending time in God’s company, a bit like you would spend time with your best friend. Prayer has been likened to breathing: as essential to our spiritual lives as breathing is to our physical lives. And because prayer is about spending time with God, it means it is a two-way conversation with him.

Prayer is more about being with God than transferring information to him. Knowing our thoughts is no problem to the one who created all things. What matters to God most is being with us and embracing us with his love.

The Bible has many names for God: Lord, the Almighty and King are just a few. But when Jesus taught his followers to pray, he encouraged them to call God ‘Father’. This reminds us that we are speaking to someone who is close to us and who loves us – just like a good parent.

Don’t worry about having just the right words to say. God is delighted that you’re spending time with him, rather than what the quality or style of your words may be.

You can say anything to God. Be honest and open with him, as he already knows you better than you know yourself. Share the good and the bad.

However, just as trying to find something to say to someone when we first meet them, the first time we try praying, we might find it difficult to know what to say. However, there are some prompts that Christians find help them when they’re praying:

• We can start by thanking God for anything that is good in our lives
• If we believe that we have done anything wrong, then we can say sorry
• We might want to tell God about family or friends who we’re concerned about
• Perhaps there are events in the local community or on the news to include in our prayers
• We can also ask God to help us with anything that is worrying us in our own lives

And if we’re really struggling to find the words to pray, there is a prayer in the Bible that Jesus taught his followers to pray. It’s known today as the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.

As much as it’s important to talk to God, prayer requires us to listen too. Spending time with God in silence, observing the thoughts that come into our mind, may be God’s way of speaking to us – and we can know that God will only prompt us to act and speak in ways that show his unconditional love to us and to the people around us.

If we aren’t sure what God is saying, we can talk to Christians we know who may be able to help.

Prayer doesn’t need to be silent or still, with our eyes closed and hands clasped. Here are some things you could try:

• Go out for a walk and use the world around you to inspire your prayers. What brings you joy? What concerns you? Who do you meet along the way?
• Buy a local newspaper or read the news online and pray for some of the people and situations you come across.
• Get creative – listen to music,  write poetry, keep a diary of the things you’ve spoken to God about, exercise, light candles. As you do these things, tell God that you are offering him your time and thoughts.

While private, intimate conversations with God are great, we can also pray with other people. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he said to begin the pray with ‘Our Father’ not ‘My Father’, which shows that we’re encouraged to pray together.

Those prayers don’t have to take place only within church congregations. Families, friends and work colleagues have found that their relationships have grown closer because they have spent time praying together.

God always responds when we pray to him. Sometimes it can be a challenge working out what the response is, and we may find he doesn’t always do exactly what we ask. 

It’s a bit like a toddler who asks for ice cream for every meal they eat. Because they like ice cream, they think it’s a great idea, but parents know that it would not be good for their child. In the same way with our prayers, we may sometimes ask for something we feel is good, but God has something better for us.

This isn’t easy, especially when we are praying for healing from ill health or for difficult circumstances to change. We need to remember that God is love, and love always works for good, even when we don’t understand how.

But don’t stop praying when the conversation with God gets hard. Let God know how you feel, and perhaps ask him to teach you something new. This is also when it’s good to speak to Christians – they may have had a similar experience or can pray with you when you find talking to God difficult.