They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. —ACTS 2:42
Prayer is conversation with God. It is an essential aspect of getting to know Him more intimately. Our conversations with Him reveal a lot about the nature of our relationship with Him. A good conversation with God involves a lot of listening. I must listen so I can understand and do His will. This is the fabric of life in Christ. In this chapter, I will discuss three tools to improve your prayer life.
Prayerwalking teaches us to see things from God’s perspective. It is the best way I know to grow in that ability. It also allows us to practice recognizing the voice of the Holy Spirit and to obey Jesus’ command to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven (MATTHEW 6:10).
Prayerwalking means praying while you walk, usually about things you see as you walk. It is best to prayerwalk with a partner. This creates a three-way conversation between you, your friend, and the Lord. In this way, you gain a double advantage—hearing directly from the Lord and also hearing how the Lord is speaking to the other person. Often, as a result, your prayers build on one another’s prayers and go in directions that neither of you would have contemplated if you had prayed alone.
There are generally four ways to determine what to pray for when prayerwalking:
1. Observation
2. Revelation
3. Research
4. Praying based on a passage of Scripture
Observation means that you pray about what you see, hear, or smell as you are walking. For example, if you are in a residential neighborhood and see a tricycle in a yard, that might prompt you to pray for the family life in that home, or for children in the neighborhood, or even for people’s transportation needs.
Revelation refers to God putting something in your mind—something apparently unrelated to what you are observing. Sometimes this can be in the form of a picture, but often it is simply a topic or thought.
We can also pray about issues we have learned of by conducting research. For example, you might have read of problems with unemployment, teenage pregnancy, or drug abuse. Then, as you walk through the neighborhood, you can pray for those issues. Research, obviously, requires preplanning and intentionality.
Praying based on a passage of Scripture can be planned in advance, or you may be led to a particular passage during a prayerwalk. This is more likely to happen if you are deeply familiar with Scripture.
In practical terms, we are looking for the gaps between God’s will and the situation on earth. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (MATTHEW 6:10). As we walk, we are noting specific areas where God’s will is not being done and asking God to do it, making ourselves available for Him to use in His answer to the prayer. When we prayerwalk, we engage in a conversation with God, asking Him to reveal what He thinks about what we are observing. You can ask God questions about what you are seeing as you prayerwalk, and He can guide you into conversations with and prayers for people you encounter. All these experiences increase our capacity to hear God and see situations from His perspective.
With practice, this can become habitual, and we can begin to experience prayerliving rather than praying only at special times and places. This is what Paul meant when he commanded us to “pray without ceasing” (1 THESSALONIANS 5:17). Prayerwalking teaches us to see the world as God sees it. This is central to being Theopraxic.
Our attitude toward prayer should be like our attitude toward air or water or food. We simply cannot do without it. Jesus certainly had this perspective. He said His food was to do the Father’s will and accomplish His work (JOHN 4:34). He said that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word God speaks (MATTHEW 4:4). How can we hear every word if we are not constantly listening? Prayer is not an incidental practice, but a constant manner of life to be cultivated.
It is possible to pray in ways that have no value. Jesus warns that those who pray in public, “so that they may be seen by men,” will receive no reward from the Father (MATTHEW 6:5–6). Prayer is not intended to be a public display, but a personal interaction with God. If we are aware of being in His presence, it is difficult to ignore Him. Imagine standing before an earthly king. Would you completely ignore him? No, you would pay close attention to his attitude toward whatever you were doing or saying. We should do the same when we are in God’s presence (which is always). We earnestly desire to know what He thinks about our actions, speech, and attitudes.
Frequently, we may not know what to pray. When I feel like this, I assume that I am better off remaining silent and listening. Sometimes this feeling means that it is time to ask a question. If we are supposed to say something to God in prayer, we have the unimaginable benefit of the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf with groans that are beyond words, and the Father hears and understands perfectly (Romans 8:26).
Often, especially in this over-busy world, it is difficult to maintain focus when we pray. It is easy to be distracted. I would like to mention one other practical resource: the prayer wheel, developed by Dick Eastman at Every Home for Christ. (Used by permission. Dick Eastman, The Hour that Changes the World, Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books, 2002). It is a simple way to spend an undistracted hour in prayer. It is divided into twelve sections, each for a different type of prayer (as listed below). The goal is to use each section as a guide for five minutes of prayer. Together, the twelve segments result in a helpful guide for an hour of prayer.
How to pray for one hour using the prayer wheel:
1. PRAISE: Start your prayer hour by praising the Lord. Praise Him for things that are on your mind right now. Praise Him for one special thing He has done in your life in the past week. Praise Him for His goodness to your family. (PSALM 34:1)
2. WAITING: Spend this time waiting on the Lord. Let Him pull together reflections for you. Think about the hour before you and the things you want the Lord to do in your life. (PSALM 27:14)
3. CONFESSION: Ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything in your life which might be displeasing to Him. Ask Him to point out attitudes that are wrong, as well as specific acts for which you have not yet made a prayer of confession. Now confess that to the Lord and claim 1 John 1:9 so that you might be cleansed for the remainder of the hour before you, and then pick up and read the Word. (PSALM 51:1–19)
4. PRAYERFULLY READ THE WORD: Spend time reading promises of God in the Psalms, in the prophets, and passages on prayer located in the New Testament. Check your concordance. (PSALM 119:97)
5. PETITION: This is general request for others, praying through the prayer list, the prayer cards, or personal prayer interest on behalf of yourself and others. (HEBREWS 4:16)
6. INTERCESSION: Specific prayer on the behalf of others. Pray specifically for those requests of which you are aware. (ROMANS 15:30–33)
7. PRAY THE WORD: Now take the Scriptures and start praying the Scriptures. Certain sections of PSALM 119 lend themselves beautifully to prayer expression. (PSALM 119:38–46)
8. THANKSGIVING: Spend these minutes giving thanks to the Lord for things in your life, things on behalf of the church, your extended family, your workplace, and your community. (Philippians 4:6)
9. SINGING: Take your hymnal and sing a prayer song, sing a praise song, sing a song regarding soul winning or witnessing. Let it be a time of praise. (PSALM 59:17)
10. MEDITATE ON THE WORD: Ask the Lord to speak to you. Keep a paper and pen handy, ready to relate the impressions that He makes upon your life. (PSALM 63)
11. LISTEN: Spend time merging the things you have read from the Word, the things you have prayed, the things you have thanked the Lord for, and the things that you have been singing, and see how the Lord brings them all together to speak to you. (1 SAMUEL 3:9–10)
12. END WITH PRAISE: Praise the Lord for the time you have had to spend with Him. Praise Him for the impressions that He has given you. Praise Him for the prayer requests He raised up in your mind. (PSALM 145:1–13)
People, especially in the United States, have limited attention spans and, therefore, a limited capacity for prayer. The prayer wheel offers an effective way for many to increase their capacity. It also helps people to have a more balanced approach to their prayer life—especially with regard to listening more, which is a critical aspect of following the Lord.
An additional prayer practice that I have found surprisingly fruitful is praying for my enemies. We all know that part of God’s upside-down Kingdom is the command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Three times in my life, people have egregiously wronged me in ways that upended my life. Fortunately, in retrospect I can look back and clearly discern how the Lord used each of those situations for my good. That is not always the case in this life. Many such traumatic events can be properly understood only in eternity.
In any case, I make it a discipline to pray for each of those three people daily. I pray in a way related to my “Application” item for that day’s SOAPS journal entry. (Incidentally, I do the same for many other people who are on my daily prayer list.) For example, I recently read LUKE 21:34–36, where Jesus says,
Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap; for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.
The generalized application was that we are to avoid anything that would weaken or distract us from being alert for Christ’s return or from being ready for the difficulties that will precede His return. We are also to pray for strength to endure those difficulties. As I prayed for the people on my prayer list, I asked the Lord what particular aspects of that application would be relevant and helpful for each individual, and then I prayed toward that end.
Frequently, my daily prayers for those three “enemies” concerning that day’s application give me additional insights into nuances of the application that I would not have noticed had I been praying only for myself or others who are close to me. These prayers give me an awareness of dimensions of virtue, corruption, motivation, and temptation that would never occur to me otherwise. I am constantly astonished at the impact this simple habit has on me. I am deeply blessed by it. It also helps me better understand and love the people I am praying for.
Prayer brings together the topics of listening and unity. Prayer is intended to be a corporate practice as well as an individual one. The Lord’s Prayer, in MATTHEW 6:9–13, is in the plural: “Our Father … our daily bread … forgive us our debts … do not lead us … deliver us.” Many of the instructions for prayer in the epistles are in the plural as well.
Based on John’s emphases on love, listening, and unity, it is no surprise that he gives his well-known prayer promise in the plural in 1 JOHN 5:14–15:
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.
This means that we should invest time in praying with one another. It also means that we should pray for one another and in agreement with each other. There is a particular significance to praying in this way. We see an example of that in MATTHEW 18:19–20, where Jesus says, “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
The matters about which we can be most confident of God’s will in our individual and corporate prayers are those that directly impinge upon God’s glory and greatness being made known and His Kingdom being advanced. This is a major purpose of God. Moses (NUMBERS 14:11–19), Daniel (DANIEL 9:1–19), and other faithful saints have understood this aspect of prayer. We would do well to make that the primary direction of our prayers also.
This is a major consideration in prayer. God will act according to His own purposes. John makes this clear in 1 JOHN 5:14–15, as quoted above: If we pray according to His will, we can have confidence about what we are requesting from Him. The more we know the Lord and understand His will, character, and ways, the more confidently and powerfully we can pray.
PRAYER
Lord, forgive me. My lack of prayer stems from my lack of belief. I don’t pray much because I don’t really believe that I can do nothing without You. I don’t really believe that You hear and care and answer. Forgive me. Teach me to go through life praying without ceasing. Teach me to constantly listen for Your voice and seek Your perspective on all that is going on around me. Help me fight through the distractions and focus on You. Teach me to pray.
QUESTIONS
Read the following questions, then pray and ask God what He wants you to learn and do. Listen quietly.
Review your journal. Are there any past commitments you have not completed? If needed, schedule revised completion dates.
1. Would I benefit from practicing prayerwalking, the prayer wheel, and praying for my enemies? How will I incorporate those activities into my regular routines?
2. What specific actions does God want me to take in response to this chapter? (Note them in your journal and schedule them in your calendar.)
3. With whom (at least one name) does God want me to share what I have learned?
Ask the Lord to enable you to follow through on these commitments and to prepare the hearts of those with whom you intend to share insights.
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