I dont know how to pray?

Hi.

It's good to use the Bible as the source of your prayers. Tell the Lord of your needs, He will hear, but praying is greatly enriched by the Bible. That's what I do most of the time. Take a paragraph of the Bible; whatever you're going through; and read it, meditate on it a bit if you want to also and talk to the Lord about it and whatever He brings to your mind and heart.

One of the greatest lesson in praying I learned, and am still learning, is that God is not out there in heaven, looking at His stopwatch to see if I can pray for an hour without stopping. Jesus wants you to talk to Him because He loves you, a lot. Thinking about what to pray will exhaust you and cause you to repeat. Also, know that you are talking to a person. He is there, with you, He's not distancing Himself because of you. He loves you. I may not be much help but prayer does not require technique any more than your talking to your friends or spouse or whoever requires a technique.

You can use I.O.U.S. if you want to which is not a technique as much as a guide to avoiding repeating yourself but what's most important to know is that God loves you. He wants you to talk to Him, and using His word greatly enriches your prayer.

God bless you!

Pray from the heart, is a loving relationship with your God, ask Him for things praying in faith and believing, tell him how you feel, tell him how he could help you in your life, you could pray to our Lord Jesus or father God, but remember when u want something done or want something go to the father and pray in Jesus name....have fun in your relationship with God

To start out, pray the prayer Jesus taught us to pray:

“This, then, is how you should pray:“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’


This prayer is in Matthew 6 and also in Luke 11 (slightly shorter form in Luke).


Now, this prayer is not some "magic words" or something (otherwise, the English version wouldn't help us, we'd have to pray it in Aramaic or Hebrew or something. ) So the key is to understand what you are actually talking about when you are talking to your Dad in heaven.


I ask a lot of questions (a lot of questions), I'm a 'questions' kind of girl, so I break it down like this in my head:

“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,"
[In what way is God my Father? What does it mean to be God's son? What kind of Father is he?]

"hallowed be your name,"
['Hallowed be your name' means 'may your name be considered holy'. 'Holy' means 'set apart, other, different'. How is our Father's name different than anyone else's name? What makes Him different, other, holy? Why would I want His name to be considered holy by others?]

"your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven."
[What does God's kingdom look like? How does it show up in the here-and-now? What is God's will? How can I tell when it's His will being done and not someone else's will? What does He want to happen on earth?]

"Give us today our daily bread."
[What do I actually need today? In what way does my 'daily bread' come from my Father? I bought this bread at the Piggly-Wiggly with money I earned. Is it still from my Father? What do my brothers and sisters need today?]

"Forgive us our debts,"
[What debts do I have to my Father?]

"as we also have forgiven our debtors."
[Have I forgiven those who have sinned against me? Is my forgiveness from my Father really dependent on my forgiveness of others?]

"And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’"
[How does our Father keep us out of temptation's way? How does He deliver us?]



This is just a rough idea of how to use the 'Lord's Prayer' as an outline. Don't worry if you stray off the path, your Father wants to hear what's on your heart, not 'magic words', but if you get 'stuck' you can go on to the next point.

Hope that helps.

God bless

Leonardo164 said:

Hi guys,

I have a problem with prayer cause i dont know how to pray.More precisely i dont have the words to pray,i will say a thing 1 million times cause i dont know what to say.I would ask Jesus to help me but again i cant pray for more than 5-10 minutes,after 3-4 sentences im done i dont know what to say anymore.Please help me???

Click to expand...

Tell the Lord the concerns of your heart. Praise Him for the things He has done in your life. Ask Him for help in overcoming sin, and to increase your faith. Ask Him to give you wisdom and strength. Ask Him to give you discernment. Pray for your unsaved friends and relatives. Pray for the underground church and persecuted Christians. Pray for your leaders, and for your community. Pray for your church, for your brothers and sisters in Christ, and for your pastor. Pray for a deeper experience of His love. Pray for God to open up His word to you. These are just a few examples of the many things you can pray about.

The relationship between God and His church is like husband and wife. You need to stay in touch with God, because communication is essential to an intimate relationship such as that we have with God. Scripture says the Holy Spirit helps us pray, so ask God to help you pray to Him. God bless, and I will pray for you too.

Pray as if you're talking to another person--because you are. Just try to relax and ask God for His help, but don't be selfish when you ask for things. Talk to God about you're day. It may be difficult at first though, just keep doing it and you'll get better.

Leonardo164 said:

Hi guys,

I have a problem with prayer cause i dont know how to pray.More precisely i dont have the words to pray,i will say a thing 1 million times cause i dont know what to say.I would ask Jesus to help me but again i cant pray for more than 5-10 minutes,after 3-4 sentences im done i dont know what to say anymore.Please help me???

Click to expand...

I approach the Father through the Son, Jesus Christ.
I begin and end my prayers in Jesus name.

Example...
Father in Jesus name I ...
In Jesus name I pray....

Let me tell you a secret...
God knows everything that is in your heart, good or bad.
God is not interested in how long or "well" you pray but He
is interested in you opening your heart to Him and inviting
Him into every area of your life.

How long does it take to say:

Father in Jesus name I ask you to come into every area of my life
and have your way and will in me.
In Jesus name I ask

I do not pray long prayers but instead I pray as I feel the need
to communicate with my Father a desire, need or prayer for others as the
day progresses.

I may pray and ask for forgiveness one moment for my failures
to let God have His way and later I may find myself praying
for someone who cut me off while driving.

Prayer is really being God conscious...

What do I mean?

If we truly believe that God knows our every thought and desire
and if we believe that He sees into the very depths of our souls
and that He knows our every motive and desires before we even voice them,
then why not communicate with Him as though He is continually with us
at every moment of every day?

God conscious....

Prayer takes on a new meaning and relevancy when we simply converse with God
as if He is with us all the time and knows our every thought, desire, feeling, emotion and motivation.

Being God conscious allows our conversations with God to be natural
and more like a conversation with a trusted friend instead of some formal exercise in religiosity.

God knows everything about you good or bad and yet He loves you
absolutely and has committed Himself to you as your Father, friend and
lover of your soul so why not talk to Him and open yourself up
to Him as you would any trusted friend.

So it isn't how long you pray or how eloquently you make your
requests known to Him but it is in a few words of open and honest
communication that God desires of you.

It is a relationship that God is calling you to so don't make
it awkard or difficult by putting pressure on yourself to perform.

I wondered what pray without ceasing meant (II Th 5:;17) and someone on one of these forums (sorry I don’t remember who said it to give them credit) said look for opportunities to pray throughout the day.

You know, getting up, we thank Yahweh b/c this is the day He has made (Psa 118). Listening to the news, we learn of families that need His help. We’re reminded to pray for our leaders, our government – Congress, Supreme Court and the judicial system, federal, state, county, city, etc. We pray for our military and all those involved in protecting our country. We thank Him for our nation. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psa 122:6). Getting our kids ready, we pray with them and bless them as they get dropped off for school. We thank Him for our families and friends. We pray for everyone to have the revelation of who He is (Eph 1:17) and for our enemies (Matt 5:44). Seeing an accident, we pray for the victim & their families and friends, emergency & hospital personnel, law enforcement, etc. Seeing a bag lady, alcoholic, or someone else in need, we pray for them.

Then there is time in our prayer closet (Mat 6:6). This is private time to get our minds off ourselves and others and spend time deliberately focusing on Yahweh by thanksgiving, praising Him, playing some music ((like religious Christmas lyrics that are about Him), meditating (means to focus) on Scripture such as Psa 145, thinking about some of His titles, names, and attributes and singing a song about Him to an audience of One. Recommendations based on such Scriptures as I Thess 5:17; John 4:24; Psa 16:11; 46:10, 69:30; 71:23; and 100:4

When I Pray...I talk to God like I talk to anyone else. God doesn't care if you use fancy phrases or not. He wants you to have a relationship with him. And communication is key to any relationship. Don't worry about fancy phrases, just talk to him like you would your best friend on Earth...because he's your best friend PERIOD.

Also, I tend to pray for others before I pray for myself.

Leonardo164 said:

Hi guys,

I have a problem with prayer cause i dont know how to pray.More precisely i dont have the words to pray,i will say a thing 1 million times cause i dont know what to say.I would ask Jesus to help me but again i cant pray for more than 5-10 minutes,after 3-4 sentences im done i dont know what to say anymore.Please help me???

Click to expand...

The disciples had to actually ask Jesus to teach them to pray. They said "Why don't you teach us to pray like John the baptist teaches his disciples?" This was late into Jesus' ministry.

Jesus did not go out of his way to teach the disciples how to pray and, they had to ask him to. I believe this was because Jesus knew that people would write down his words, memorize the phrases, remember the methods... and make it a skill and that is not what prayer is.

You cannot recite certain words or phrases in the correct order or manner and move God, he is not concerned with the sounds that come out of your mouth, he is concerned with the cry of your heart it has nothing to do with what you say, it has everything to do with your hearts cry to him and your faith that he hears you and that he loves you and that he is going to respond to you, not because of what you said but because he is your Father who is in heaven!

Say it anyway, anyhow, anytime you can, it matters not what what you say or how you say it, just cry out to the father for all that you need and believe that he is going to answer you... not because you used the right words, but because he's your father .

I have children of my own, i will provide for them regardless of how well they perform, they don't ever have to worry about whether or not they get to each lunch today because they did something bad, or good, or right or wrong... I am their father and they will have what they need regardless. That is how God sees us.

Talk to him the way you feel, the way you would talk to anyone else and don't worry about how it sounds or how long it lasts.

This is not like weaving a spell or conjuring, the emphasis being on the right words used in the correct order.

He's your father, just talk to him, tell him how you feel and believe that he will answer you because he is your father, not because you said the right prayer.

Theres no specific words you have to use. But it is always nice to start and end with him. Example "God I come to you..." and "....In Jesus name, Amen".