Plodding Habits - Prayer

Prayer is another plodding habit that will feed your soul. It works just as slowly as the others, day in and day out.

If you're not even sure where to start, I point you to the Lord's Prayer as a model to follow. Think through each part of it and expand on it. For example, when we pray, we pray to "our father in heaven." We can expand on this and think of the many other names of God and address him with those also. Lord, Savior, Father, Almighty, and so forth. When we add "hallowed be your name" we can spend time in praise of him and his greatness and thanking him for the many blessings he gives. Continue like this through the rest of the prayer. One thing you will notice is that you must spend time in praise of God, turning our attention to him rather than only asking for things.

If you prefer, you can have an even simpler structure using the ACTS acronym. That is

• Adoration - praising God for who he is
• Confession - confessing your sins and asking him to forgive you
• Thanksgiving - thanking God for his gifts, blessings, and forgiveness
• Supplication - asking God for our needs and those of others

You do not have to include every part of prayer every time.  Several years ago, I was trying to pull off a winding road in the rain and my car slid into a ditch and down a hill. I was praying, braking, and steering all together and I didn't have time to get through adoration, confession, and thanksgiving before my supplication! But, we should have time set aside to pray just like for scripture reading, so we can spend time on each part of prayer.

Another example I will share is from Nehemiah. In chapter 1, Nehemiah learns of the sad state of Jerusalem and prays extensively to God on behalf of his people. In chapter 2, the king asks Nehemiah what is troubling him. Verse 4 says Nehemiah prayed immediately after this question, then answered. I think we can assume that Nehemiah didn't run from the room, spend time going through ACTS, then return. He probably prayed something like "Lord, help me!" in his mind and then asked. Both are valid prayers, but we should cultivate both.

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