Prayer - A Beginners Guide

Prayer is beautiful gift of God; an expression of wonder; an acknowledgement of helplessness; a recognition of God’s love; a revealing of the heart; a conversation and a listening.  And these are only the starting points in the great adventure of communicating what is on our hearts and minds with the creator of the Universe who was there at the beginning and will be there at the end; who is in every star and constellation, who is at the centre of every flower; who is present in the turmoil of war and in the place of peace where sun touched waves lap gently on some distant beach.

How do I pray?

Simply and Honestly
He knows our hearts and our every need. We cannot fool him or hide behind complicated words and phrases.  So it is a conversation where we talk simply and directly  about those issues, situations, feelings and hopes that are on our minds.

It may be ‘Lord, I feel desperate today’ It may be ‘ Lord thank you for this lovely baby’.  It may be ‘Lord I am so sorry for what I have done, would you please forgive me’.  Whatever it is we share simply and  honestly.

In the name of Jesus
God hears our prayers not because we are good and wholesome people who deserve to have our prayers heard.   It is because when we become Christians, recognising thst God loves us and that Christ’s death on the cross enables us to be utterly cleansed and forgiven.  Then we can pray in the name of Jesus and because we are in Him, God responds to the cry of His Son on our behalf

The possible elements of prayer

Give yourself some time out from the business of life to sit quietly and in a sense tune in to the presence of God.

Many of us begin by thanking God for the good things in our life – particularly those people or things that we take for granted.

This often leads on to worship recognising God’s great love for example, or the wonder of the coming of Jesus or the delight that God is with us in the here and now

In many of our prayer times, this worship of God reminds us of our own weakness and failure to do what is right.  So we need to confess these areas to God and ask for a renewed forgiveness and cleansing

As we begin to warm to the greatness of God so we can bring those people, issues and concerns that we want to share with God into our prayers.

As read this, we have prayed that you may be encouraged to pray for yourself and discover or rediscover the wonder of prayer and through that the glory of God’s love for you.

For more on prayer, read our ROUGH GUIDE TO PRAYER