"Hi God, it's Me" - The Spiritual Discipline of Prayer

Why Pray?

Jeremiah 29:12 NIV

12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

Hebrews 4:16 NIV

16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Heb 4:

“To pray is to change. This is a great grace. How good of God to provide a path whereby our lives can be taken over by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness ang goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.” ~Richard Foster, Prayer, p. 6

We pray because we love God and God loves us.

We pray because it makes a difference—for us, for those we love and for the world.

How to Pray?

Pray for Our Own Growth

Simple prayer

Don’t buy into the myth that “we have to have everything ‘just right’ in order to pray” (Foster, p. 7)

Pray just as you are.

Think of Moses in : “Why have I not found favour in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?...”

“…God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life...” (Foster, p. 11)

“lay before [God] what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” (C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcom: Chiefly on Prayer)

“Dear Jesus, how desperately I need to learn to pray. And yet when I am honest, I know that I often do not even want to pray. I am distracted! I am stubborn! I am self-centered! In your mercy, Jesus, bring my ‘want-er’ more in line with my ‘need-er’ so that I can come to want what I need. In your name and for your sake, I pray. Amen.” ~Foster, p15

Prayer on all occasions: loneliness, self-examination, grief, need to let go, for God to shape us, to make commitments to God and to receive God’s commitments (covenant prayer)

Loneliness, self-examination, grief, need to let go, for God to shape us, to make commitments to God and to receive God’s commitments (covenant prayer)

to examine ourselves

when we need to let go

for God to shape us

Covenant prayer?

Pray for Closeness to God

Adoration, Rest, Always, from the Heart, Meditate, Contemplate

Rest

Unceasing Prayer

Prayer of the Heart

Meditative Prayer

Contemplative Prayer

Pray for Our Ministry

Discernment & Compassion!

Everyday Ordinary Prayer

Petitioning Prayer

Intercessory Prayer

Healing Prayer

The Prayer of Suffering

Authoritative Prayer

Authoritative Prayer

Radical Prayer