How To Pray

7 Tips From One Amateur To Another

“The Persistent Widow” by James B. Janknegt

Hi friends, I meant for this to come out earlier in our month of prayer, but perhaps, in a way, it’s even more fitting at the end. One of the main purposes of a month of prayer and fasting is, of course, to show us how much we need to stay connected to him in prayer all the time. I hope this will encourage you to always pray and not give up.

Intro: Prayer & Atheism

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. (Luke 18:1)

Prayer is a hard topic for me. At times, it’s been the area of my life where I’ve felt most like a hypocrite. Why am I able to talk about God so much more easily than I am able to talk to him? Perhaps for some, talking to God comes naturally, but for me it never has. And I don’t think it was just the will-power part of it. I’m a relatively disciplined person. No, my greatest struggle was never quite with the habit of prayer, but with the very concept of it. Even when I made the time for it, I couldn’t seem to do it. At least, not very well.

Don’t get me wrong. I really believed. And I could pray with other people just fine. But when I tried to do what Jesus commanded in the Sermon on the Mount—when I went into my closet, with no one else around, and made my requests known to him—that’s when prayer seemed to become my enemy. There, in the silence of my own soul, I was continually shaken by the fact that I did not feel the presence of God so much as his absence. Like I was talking to a wall.

Twenty-five years of brilliant arguments from the very best atheist scholars—I’ve read them all—couldn’t move me an inch toward their side compared to ten minutes in the prayer closet trying to do exactly what Jesus commanded. If famous atheist Richard Dawkins really wanted a win for his team, I thought, he should quit publishing books and just start telling people to “actually try praying by yourself for ten minutes.”

Anyway, as someone who preferred to keep believing in God(!), I unconsciously began to shy away from prolonged occasions of private prayer. Prayer was too dangerous for this Christian. Better to talk about him than to risk the existential crisis of talking to someone who, particularly in such haunted moments, made you fear that he might not be there at all.

But by the grace of God I didn’t fully shy away. And through that struggle, I learned something I don’t think I could have learned any other way: that Jesus really knew what he was doing when he urged us into the closet. Instead of burying the atheist in me deeper down, through prayer, he drew him out…and killed him. And though I may be an extreme example, I don’t think I’m the only one. Everyone believes and also doesn’t believe. We all have to deal with our atheism in one way or another. Might as well talk to him about it.

“I believe; help my unbelief,” (Mark 9:24) is a prayer Jesus is proven to answer. It is perhaps one of the first prayers I ever truly learned to pray. And for what it’s worth, I pray it far less now than I used to, because…he has answered it.

Anyway, that’s a bit of background on my personal struggles with prayer. So take what follows with a grain of salt. I am no pro. Far from it. I echo C.S. Lewis’s sentiments in his preface to Reflections on the Psalms:

In this book, I write as one amateur to another, talking about difficulties I have met, or lights I have gained…with the hope that this might at any rate interest, and sometimes even help, other inexpert readers. I am “comparing notes,” not presuming to instruct.

Yes. So here goes…

7 Tips On Prayer From One Amateur To Another

1. Pray poorly.

As John Ortberg once said, growth in the spiritual life should be more about TRAINING and TRYING. Of course, everything that’s worth doing requires both training and trying, both formative practice and will-power. But a life of prayer has much more to do with the former than the latter. No amount of sheer will-power is going to make you a person of prayer. But doing it every day, little by little, will begin to reshape your soul. Our community has taken up the practice of praying every day on our knees for just one minute when we wake and when more minute before we get in bed. Another good place to practice is in your car. If you have a daily commute where you would normally listen to music or a podcast both ways, pick certain days where you commit one leg of the trip (either there or back) to silent prayer. (Skip to #7 if you want to see how I pray in the car these days.) Anyway, the point is: pray, even if it doesn’t go well. Keep practicing. Something I tell me kids a lot: “Everyone has to be bad at stuff before they’re good at it.” If you refuse to do it poorly, you’ll never do it at all.

2. Pray set prayers.

By “set prayers” I mean given prayers, those given to us in Scripture or in our church tradition, which teach us how to pray by doing them. When the disciples ask Jesus how to pray, he doesn’t just tell them how. He shows them how, by giving them a prayer they can pray. Of course, this isn’t meant to be the only way they should pray, but I don’t believe there’s any better place to start. In teaching our kids to pray, Hannah and I started early on by teaching them to pray their own prayers “from the heart.” This has been good and important. But at the same time, I’ve also been teaching my boys some set prayers. And with those, I’ve found I’m giving them an almost bottomless treasure chest, which they’ve hardly begun to open, which they will have for the rest of their lives. Sure, they don’t even understand what some of the words of the Lord’s Prayer or Psalm 23 or the Prayer of Confession from the Book of Common Prayer mean! But the very rhythm and poetry ministers to them almost immediately, and slowly they get little glimpses into the meaning of this phrase or that phrase as we apply it to something we’re going through in life. “Prayers from the heart” are absolutely necessary. But over time, “prayers from the heart” develop their own patterns too. They often become their own accidental, unexamined liturgies with oft-repeated words, phrases, and tones. I know there is a temptation to think that praying set prayers is not “sincere.” But I think this is a modern misunderstanding of where our thoughts and feelings come from. We do not “invent” our own thoughts. Even our deepest feelings do not simply originate from within us. We are communal beings, shaped by realities around us and before us, which are much older and more powerful than we, for better and for worse. Of course, we are not mere victims of these forces, but rather must learn to have agency over them, “to take every thought captive” as Paul says. The goal of our spiritual life is not so much individualistic self-creation, but faithful, communal cultivation of the things passed down to us. “I dunno, Ross,” you say. “This sounds like traditional mumbo-jumbo.” I know, I know. But you already agree with me more than you think you do. Case in point: singing in church. Non-traditional worshippers will often judge liturgical worshippers for “going through the motions” when they pray set prayers. We feel strange saying the words of Psalm 23 or even the Lord’s Prayer together (even though they are divine Scripture!), and yet we will passionately sing songs in church as though they were our own “prayers from the heart.” But singing in church is quite literally going through the motions. Of the songs we sing, none of the words are of our own invention. The lyrics—and the melody and the rhythm—must be strictly adopted by everyone simultaneously or else the song doesn’t work. And we don’t see this as insincere. Of course not. Because singing is glorious, and it gives rise to glorious worship from the heart. If this can be true of a modern praise song that was written and recorded by a random musician in skinny jeans last year, how much more the older prayers of the church? How much more still the prayers given to us by our Lord? Which leads to point #2.5...

2.5 Pray the Lord’s Prayer.

C.S. Lewis was a big believer in set prayers. Like me, he grew up praying from the Book of Common Prayer and continued to do so throughout his life. But more central to his prayer life were the words of the Lord’s Prayer. Of course, when he prayed it, he didn’t just recite it. Rather, he used the Lord’s Prayer as a foundational structure for his morning prayers. He would use each phrase as a jumping off point: “Our Father, who art in heaven…” And would pray and ask out of his own thoughts and feelings and needs, as each line of the prayer gave opportunity. “Give us this day our daily bread…” “Forgive us our trespasses…” Etc. I have found the same method very helpful. First, it keeps me on track, helping me not to be too distracted. But also, it invites me into the deepest themes of the Father’s heart, which are given to us all in that one prayer. The prayer itself, each time you pray it, is a journey from heaven down to earth down further to the underworld and then back again to heaven by the end. Only a prayer from our Lord Jesus himself could help us to cover so much ground in so few words.

3. Pray short, pray often (like breathing).

A marker of many of the great saints of God is that they’re almost constantly in prayer. This is the theme of the book Practicing The Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. But this raises an obvious question: If you’re praying all the time, how do you do anything else? Like, it makes sense that monks in monasteries live lives of prayer. But I have a job and a family and many other things which demand my thoughts, time and attention. True. We are not Brother Lawrence. But one method these ancient Christians developed in order to be in constant prayer was to make their prayers so naturally occurring in their spirit as to be almost involuntary. If we picture ourselves giving long and involved speeches to God all day, of course that won’t work. But it’s good to remember that God is not expecting a dissertation. “And when you pray,” he says, “do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:7-8 — btw, this is his intro to the Lord’s Prayer!). The point is, when we envision “prayer without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:16), we should not envision talking without ceasing. Rather, we should probably envision a continual spirit of prayer. The Eastern Orthodox tradition has preserved a very old practice called The Jesus Prayer. It’s a one-line prayer based on Jesus’s story of the praying tax-collector in Luke 18. And when they say it, they usually breathe in for the first part of the sentence, and breathe out for the second part. So [breathe in] “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…” [breathe out] “have mercy on me, a sinner.” It’s a very simple prayer, but the idea here is to link the words of the prayer to your breathing, so that if you did it for long enough, the prayer itself might become as natural a part of you as your breath. No one says, “I’m too busy to breathe.” No, you just breathe as you do everything else. If you didn’t, you would die. Likewise, and for the same reason, it’s worth trying to make our prayers like our breathing. I am by no means a pro at this, but the Jesus Prayer and other one-line prayers have helped me immensely. I also depend upon short one-sentence prayers as transitions between meetings and activities. “Lord, would you be with me in this. I trust you.”

4. Pray from the thorn in your flesh.

We are always in desperate need of God’s provision. Sometimes we forget this. For that, there are thorns. In any given day, in any give season, there will be thorns. Sometimes it will be a major issue in your life—an unsolvable problem, a persistent vice, a haunted spirit. Sometimes it’s just minor annoyances: you lost your keys (again), stubbed your toe, cut your finger, or got stuck in a traffic jam. I literally have a splinter in my foot right now. I’ve had it for the whole last week of fasting. In any case, whether the thorn is big or small, let it spur you toward prayer. Let the pain, the annoyance, and the disappointment be your invitation to come once again before the throne of grace. And don’t be afraid to pray for that very thorn. “Lord, please help me find my keys.” Or to pray over that very problem, “Lord, what are you trying to show me through this thorn in my flesh?” He may answer immediately. He has for me many times. Or, as he does with Paul’s thorn, he may answer in another way, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

5. Pray with your body.

Don’t count out the importance of aligning your body with you spirit. If you’re always trying to make your mind go some place that your body isn’t following, it’s not going to be sustainable. The spirit needs embodiment. A couple of things that have helped me: (1) I kneel briefly to pray when I get out of bed in the morning and kneel again before I go to sleep at night. (2) At random times throughout the day, I try to open my posture—especially my hands—to the Lord. Even if I’m not saying anything to him in those moments, my body is saying, “Here I am Lord. I am yours.”

6. Pray with the saints.

From The Book of Common Prayer, Holy Eucharist Rite II

Though prayer is often private (“pray in the closet”), it is never individualized. Your prayer life is not your own. It is not “up to you” to become personally pious in your own way through prayer. Rather, when you pray, you are joined by saints and angels, “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). When you pray, you enter through that narrow gate, through the eye of the needle, into that mysterious kingdom where God is king and where his people rejoice in his glory. We pray in order to live in that kingdom now. We pray, not simply to grow more in ourselves, but to grow more into his body, to grow more in agreement and unity with his people, which is how we experience his presence and do his will. These are not individualized missions. They are meant to be done together. “Truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Matthew 18:19-20). All that to say, do not make your prayer goals alone. Go to church. Join the rhythms of the church. Pray with the people of God. Even if you’re not physically praying together, pray at the same times. If your church or community doesn’t seem to have clear prayer rhythms, ask your pastor for help. And, of course, when you pray alone, remember that you are not alone.

7. Pray with wordless groans in the car.

Here’s my fundamental problem with prayer: If I don’t speak my prayers, my mind wanders and I end up thinking about things instead of actually addressing the Lord. But if I do speak my prayers, I find that I run out of adequate words to express my heart very quickly and then I don’t know how to keep praying. And this is especially true when I really need him to show up. So I either fill my prayers with many words full of unnecessary technical details which God already knows (which Jesus expressly says not to do) or else I say very little and retreat back to thought-prayers, which lead me to distraction. Enter Romans 8:26-27…“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” What I’m about to share with you is weird and personal. I’m hesitant to talk about it, but perhaps it will be helpful to some. I call it my “prayer language.” Others call it “speaking in tongues.” I’m not convinced those are the exact same thing, but it matters very little for the time being. The point is: over the last few years, I’ve been learning to pray neither silently nor with many words. I’ve been praying with groans, with sounds, which I believe reflect the voice of my spirit—the deeper-than-words requests of my heart—which are brought out by God’s Spirit interceding on my behalf. Sometimes this looks like nothing more than crying. Sometimes it is groaning. And sometimes it is just a stream of wordless sounds from my mouth, which say more than words can say. I don’t know what I did before I discovered groaning in the Spirit. I think sometimes I cried or groaned in the Spirit anyway, without knowing that that’s what I was doing. But now I tend to think this practice has filled a gap for me, especially when I feel truly in need and don’t know what/how to pray. Finally, because this practice is a little weird, I recommend trying it out in your car, when you’re by yourself. Begin to speak to him. And then, when you run out of words, rather than letting prayers fall to silence and distraction, groan to him with wordless sounds that only he can understand, because they are the Spirit interceding for you.

That’s it! Those are my 7.5 tips on prayer, from one amateur to another. Try them out. Let me know if any of them help. And let me know which ones you would add to this list. Much love.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)