Prayer

Do you ever find praying hard? Or find yourself dozing off or day dreaming while praying? Does prayer ever seem like a distant tradition? These are some of the struggles and questions people face when praying. I have had people come to me and ask me questions on prayer, and often find myself wondering about my own prayer life. How often do I talk to God? How long do I sit in silence to listen to God?

Prayer has always been apart of my life. Over the years, I have used a variety of different prayer "techniques," but no one has ever taught me how to pray. I just prayed, but not very well. Growing up I prayed before I ate and then before I went to bed. After I became a Christian, I learned that you could pray for people so I started doing that and then I started asking people to pray for me. I learned that you could pray for healing, safe travels, and a variety of other things in life. Later on, I learned about the importance of giving thanks and praising God during prayer.  Shortly after, I learned about the importance of sitting in silence and just listening (coming from a generation/culture of non-stop movement this was difficult for me).

Now I find myself wondering about prayer again. I talk to God daily all the time while doing different things but I need to learn to just sit still and pray and listen to God. I go and go and go and then I go some more but when do I just sit in silence and pray? I have my devotion time but prayer does not take up the majority of the time.

You see, I am not talking about learning how to pray for 5 minutes, I am talking about learning how to pray in such a way that it changes your relationship with God and becomes apart of your daily life.  How much time it takes to pray and how you pray differs from person to person, but has anyone ever taught you how to pray?  Well, I want to learn how to pray by talking to those who are wiser and farther along in their faith. Prayer will always be something that people talk about and something that people do, whether or not they really acknowledge God. In times of trouble or crisis, you can find the most unbelieving people out of desperation and the lose of hope turn to prayer.

Jesus teaches on prayer in Luke 11 and teaches his disciples how to pray. Along with Scripture, there are also a number of authors that can teach you how to pray. After having talked with someone I respect, I received the following book list on prayer which I would like to share with those of you who would like to learn more about prayer and how to pray...

Prayer  by: Richard Foster
Experiencing God through Prayer  by: Madame Guyon
A Dairy of Private Prayer  by John Baillie
Praying God's Word  by: Beth Moore
Beginning to Pray  by: Anthony Bloom
With Christ in the School of Prayer  by: Andrew Murray