One day Jesus was teaching, and he said these words:
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. (Matthew 6:5)
There were religious leaders in Jesus’s day who made a habit of praying long, winding, beautiful prayers and doing it in places where lots of people would hear them and swoon over the greatness of the one praying. They received the reward of praise from other people for their all-star praying ability.
Jesus said his disciples should pray differently:
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:5-6)
As important as it is to “pray continually,” to have a life saturated with prayer throughout the day, it’s equally important to set aside a time, or times, each day to get alone, with no one listening, with no distractions, just you and God, and pray.
Jesus promises a reward when we do this. No, the reward isn’t that you’ll get everything you ask for. Jesus isn’t giving us a magic formula here. But there is a reward for those who make a regular habit of getting alone with God for a time of prayer.
The reward is the relationship. God invented prayer not as a way for you to get things you want, but as a way for you to deepen your relationship with him. That’s why you need to block out a time and a place each day and focus your attention on God.
So what is your time? And where is your place?
You have friends and family you want to spend time with, but so often the busyness of life gets in the way. Suddenly weeks or months pass, and you haven’t spoken. You have to be intentional about spending time with them, or that relationship will grow distant. It’s the same way with your relationship with your Heavenly Father. You have to be intentional about spending time with him.
That’s why we must carve out a time for a regular meeting with God. Maybe it’s in the morning. Maybe it’s in the evening. Maybe you want to be like Daniel, who stopped three times a day to get alone with God in prayer (Daniel 6:10). The key is to set the time and set the place and be disciplined in getting alone with God. If you don’t set the time, chances are that it won’t happen.
Once you decide on when and where you’ll pray, what do you do? How do you pray? I’ve written about this before, but what I do is divide my prayer time into four parts:
Praise – worship God for who he is and for what he’s done for you. Ponder the incredible characteristics of God, and make a list of things for which you’re thankful.
Repent – as God brings them to your mind, ask his forgiveness and turn away from any sins of action, sins of thought, sins of word, or sins of attitude.
Yield – surrender to God’s perfect will, acknowledging that his ways are always best, his answers are always best.
Ask – this is where you bring God your prayer requests, prayers for yourself and others after you’ve first surrendered all of your desires to him.
That acronym is supposed to spell PRAY, but instead, it spells PRYA, which isn’t a word. So if you want to swap Yield and Ask, that’s ok. But at least you’ll have a plan.
When it comes to the Ask part of your prayer time, what do you pray for? Unless you can spend several hours each day in prayer, you can’t pray for everything that comes to mind every day. So how do you choose what to ask?
Some days your heart will lead you. If you’re burdened by something, you’ll spend more time on that issue. Don’t be so disciplined that you set a timer for each request. Pour out your heart to God, be completely open and honest with God, and let your heart dictate your time.
But it does help to have a pattern because otherwise some days you won’t even know where to start.
Here’s what I do, and I would love to hear from you about how you organize your prayer time.
I have a prayer journal, and I separate the first page into three categories: Praise, Repent, and Yield. That helps discipline me to do those things before I start making requests.
The next page is marked “Daily.” Listed here are prayers for myself and others that I’ve decided I want to pray for every day, at least for a season. One thing I ask for each day is for God to use me in some way that day to enlarge and/or strengthen his kingdom. I have family and friends and issues that I’m dealing with that I pray about every day. When God answers a prayer, I write down the date and maybe a note. It’s an awesome thing to look back over the journal and see how God has come through time and time again.
And here’s a side note: if you want to stand out among the crowd, when someone asks you to pray for them, actually pray! Don’t just say, “Oh, I’ll be praying for you,” unless you mean it. Write it down, and pray!
Next, I have a page for each day of the week. I can’t pray for everything every day, so I separate items among the days of the week and pray weekly for those. Some days are just random requests. I have one day devoted to our political leaders at the local, state, and national level, and our country as a whole. On another day, I pray for several churches that are a part of our lives.
And finally, I have an individual page for Kim and each of our children. I won’t go into detail about what I’m praying for each of them, but I will tell you that each day I pray at least two things for my children: that they would grow in their walk with God, and that God would keep them from the deceit and lies of the world and our spiritual enemy. I pray a lot more for them than those two things. After all, they each have their own page, front and back, but you get the idea.
So that’s how I organize my daily prayer time. It’s what works for me and has worked for well over thirty years.
But I’m always looking for new ideas. How do you organize your prayer time? I’d love to hear your thoughts, and I may even steal some ideas. We’re never too old to learn.
The important thing is that you set aside a time and place regularly to get alone with God and pray. Jesus promised a reward for this, a deepening, growing relationship with your Father. What an incredible promise.