obstacles, reduces anxiety, and restores health. Learning to pray is not difficult. Here are some basic guidelines.


Speak to God in Everyday Language


Praying to God in simple, everyday language is the way Jesus taught us to pray. The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) is conversational in style and includes common elements of daily life—the need for food, the need of forgiveness received and given, strength for dealing with temptation. That prayer is brief and to the point. In the original Greek, it is 57 words long. In English it is 52 words and can be recited in less than 30 seconds. Most of the words in the Lord’s Prayer consist of one syllable, which means its written form is on a second-grade reading level. The lesson: we can speak to God in simple, brief, concrete sentences.


Practice Praying Throughout the Day


“Our biggest mistake is to think that a time of prayer is different from any other time. It is all one,” noted Brother Law- rence, the 17th-century mystic. His advice is sound. By all means, say your prayers in the morning upon rising or in the eve- ning before retiring, but don’t forget to pray throughout the entire day. One person who has learned to do this and thereby enriched her own prayer life is Peggy Noonan, a syndicated col- umnist and former presidential speech- writer. Noonan tells of a conversation she had with a woman about prayer. “She told me she prayed anytime and all the time,” Noonan recalls. “Just that morn- ing she had prayed while putting up the wash. She was feeling happy and wanted to thank God for all the goodness in her life. The image of this woman doing something so elevated while doing some- thing so mundane changed my attitude. I no longer had to make an appointment.”


Pour Out Your Heart


When praying, it is not necessary to hold back. Trust God to sift through your requests. Operate on the truth that God is intimately interested in every facet of your life. Do not hesitate to pour out


your heart and pray that a crisis will end, that a meeting goes well, that your child passes an exam, that a friend gets the job, that a family member experiences healing from an illness.


A quick glance at Scripture demon- strates how naturally and readily biblical people simply poured out their hearts to God. For instance, when Hannah came to the Tabernacle and sought the Lord about her desire to have children, the priest questioned her actions. Hannah replied, “I was pouring out my heart to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15 NLT).


The Psalm writers were fond of pour- ing out their hearts in prayer: “Lord, hear me when I call; have mercy and answer me” (27:7 NCV). “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles” (34:6 NASB). “Yes, Lord, help us against our enemies, for man’s help is useless” (60:11 LB).


Sprinkle Your Prayers With Gratitude


The apostle Paul instructed: “Always be joyful. Always keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thank- ful” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 LB). Grati- tude in prayer is effective in spiritually helping us shrink a crisis, defuse the dif- ficulty, and ease the trauma.


When Robert Schuller, founding pas- tor of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, learned his daughter was in a terrible motorcycle accident causing her to lose a leg, the prayer he offered was one of gratitude: “Thank You, God, that she’s alive. Thank You, God, that she just lost one leg. Thank You, God, that her face wasn’t smashed. Thank You that her brain wasn’t injured. Thank You that they got her to the hospital.” Dr. Schuller says that in a crisis, gratitude praying is “the only way to pray.”


Help Others Through Your Prayers


Along with praying for yourself and your loved ones, include in your prayers people who are distanced from you, neighbors you may not know well, employees in your building, casual acquaintances. Intercede on behalf of oth- ers. Don’t get stuck praying within a nar-


row, intimate circle. Broaden your prayer horizons to include even strangers. Dolores Cummins of Lindale, Texas, described a time before she met her hus- band: “The air was cold that December night. Church bells reminded us to pray for boys trapped in the Battle of the Bulge. I was 15, but I remember hearing a voice saying, ‘Your future husband is in that battle—pray!’ A year later, I met Robert. We started dating, and later we married. To my amazement, he related his experience of lying facedown in a beet field during that battle. The Germans had bayoneted nearly all of his fellow soldiers, but they simply stepped over him, spar- ing his life. We are now celebrating our 52nd anniversary.”


Make Meditation a Part of Your Praying


Meditate on God and His love, good- ness, kindness, mercifulness. Focus your mind on a picture of God by your side lovingly watching over you. Again, the psalmists provide us with glowing examples of such meditation: “I lie awake at night thinking of you—of how much you have helped me—and how I rejoice through the night beneath the protecting shadow of your wings” (Psalm 63:6-7 LB). “He [the Lord] is like a father to us, tender and sympathetic” (103:13 LB).


Listen to the Lord


Include moments of listening in your praying. Good communication includes both speaking and listening. Be careful that you do not fill all of your prayer time by talking. Keep in mind this advice from the Psalms: “Be still, and know that I am God” (46:10). “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him” (37:7). It is in silence and stillness that we relinquish control of our lives fully, allowing the Almighty God latitude to guide and direct our ways. “Prayer begins by talking to God, but it ends by listening to Him,” says Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. “In the face of Absolute Truth, silence is the soul’s language.”


Victor M. Parachin is an ordained minister and writer who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.


EVANGEL • SEP 2010 17


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