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Three simple tips for creating long-lasting prayer habits

Posted by Mathew | 7 August 08

One of the questions at the end of my article You don’t have to pray … you get to is quite obvious: how do you get your prayer life on track?

When I was an elder for my church some time back, I would occasionally lead the congregation in corporate prayer during the services. Now, if you know anything about me, I’m pretty lazy, in all honesty - I don’t prepare anything to read out loud for corporate prayer time (that just doesn’t work for me, anyway) and I’d only have a few sketchy ideas about what to pray about. You know, the usual stuff - missionaries associated with our church or members of the church, a prominent disaster in the news, the health of so-and-so, etc. etc. Not really inspiring stuff.

I have always found prayer difficult and I know that I am not alone and that in fact there are people who find it even more difficult than me. But there are some simple ways in which we can properly prepare our minds and hearts and souls and spirit for prayer. Here are three methods that I have found work for me.

1. Read your Bible!
I’m guilty. This, I feel, is the key reason why I am lacking in my prayer life. The Holy Spirit stirs us up from within and when we read scripture we ought also open ourselves up to the Spirit to guide our thinking. Also, it is predominantly through the reading of the Bible that we have any hope of knowing the mind and character of God and, more importantly, what His will is. So the more we read of the Bible, while remaining open to the Spirit and not leaning on our understanding, the more we will be stirred and motivated to action to pray for those things that God has placed it on our hearts to be
in prayer over. When we pray with the mind of God, we will see great power through prayer.

When you do read your Bible, make sure you commit the reading to prayer before you read (just something brief) and then quickly close off your reading with a small prayer as well.

I have a lot of improving to do on this point, as I suspect many, many Christians do!

2. When stuck, read the Psalms!
Not just a poetical book, but it is a wonderful book of Spirit-filled prayers. The book of Psalms has come to my rescue on many occasions when I’ve been called upon for spontaneous prayer and I know it will provide an endless source of inspiration for you, too.

A great online tool I’ve found allows you to search randomly for Psalms by topic. It’s called the Psalm Finder and I’d recommend you give it a go every now and then - especially when you’re looking for assurance and comfort from God’s word but don’t know where to look.

Once you’ve found a Psalm, read it a couple of times and then pray. In fact, I would recommend this option if you, like me, struggle to spend time in regular bible study/reading. Some scripture is far, far better than no scripture at all.

3. Pray in/with groups
This is not always practical, but every Christian ought to engage in some form of corporate prayer - Bible study groups or other small fellowship meetings are perfect places for this.

Praying with others does a few things: 1) takes some of the burden to pray off of you and shares the load; 2) steel sharpens steel, a rising tide lifts all ships, etc. - you pick an analogy; 3) it builds some accountability - usually you’ll be asked to pray for so-and-so and be asked bear in mind such-and-such. There is never nothing to pray about but sometimes we need a little nudge to know what those somethings are.

Lastly, you need to just start. As mentioned in my previous article, prayer does not have to formal. If you have a moment sitting at the traffic lights in the car, you can pray; if you’re waiting for a train or bus, or if you’re on the train or bus, you can pray; if you’re in the supermarket and something comes to mind, pray about it. God is not distracted or offended by you reaching for the can of baked beans or by you jostling for space on a crowded train. God is always present to hear you and looks forward to those times when you chat with Him. If you’re angry at God, tell Him - He can take that, too!

While browsing for this topic, I found these following wise words. It highlights how the things that we think impact everything else at some point; I think the same is true of prayer - if we think we don’t have the time or that we don’t know how or that we’re incompetent at it, it adversely affects all other facets of our life. Don’t let that happen to you.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

What other prompts/tips do you have that you find help you to keep on praying?

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