A Pattern for Prayer

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So prayer is a priority for us, and we have a place to pray and a posture for praying. Now let's talk about a pattern for praying.

Perhaps like me you find that sometimes it's hard to know what exactly to pray! Well I have a few prayer patterns that I like to use to help me. I've spoken in other places about using the famous ACTS outline, or the Lord's Prayer as a pattern, and in many of my Encounter worship sessions I use prayer outlines that I've found helpful, you can check those out.

My Personal Prayer Pattern

Let me share how I pray at this point. You don’t have to copy this, but it might just give you some ideas:

• I begin with praise. This is simply telling God how wonderful He is - not to stroke His ego, but to express my love for Him. I have a list of attributes of God written in my notebook, and I like to glance at this list and see what catches my heart and dwell on that in my prayer time. Or I reflect back on my morning Bible reading and express praise for what I saw there.

• Then I pray for myself. Other prayer structures put prayers for yourself at the end of prayer time. But I find that I need to be deeply connected to God to begin praying for others. If I'm not in a good place with God, the whole thing just falls apart. So I pray for my own sanctification, for self-control and discipline, for joy and peace from the Spirit. I pray for God's help in being the best husband, father (to be), and pastor I can be. I pray that God would fill me and use me in a powerful way, and I consecrate my life to Him afresh.

• Next I pray for family. Shereen and our coming babies first. Parents and siblings and grandparents and other family, and then cousins and friends.

• Next I pray for 10 people who aren't Christians - yet. I pray for them daily, for God to draw them into His love and save them. I ask Him to use me to lead them to Him.

• Then I pray for my church. I walk through each area of ministry in our church and pray God's anointing and guidance. I pray for members by name, sometimes sending them WhatsApp voice recordings of those very prayers. I pray for those having a birthday or anniversary. I pray for the names on our prayer list, and for unity and growth in our church, and for our district.

• Then I pray for our country which so deeply needs our prayer.

• And then any important prayer requests where people have asked me to pray.

• To end I go back to praise and worship.

Making Your Pattern Work for You

Quite the list! This is why I combined my prayer with walking. I didn't have the time, otherwise. Of course, sometimes it changes, sometimes one thing gets a longer time in prayer because it is pressing. So the outline is flexible. But I love it!

Just remember - prayer is not rattling off things to God which He already knows. It's not informing God of anything. Instead, praise God constantly as you work through your list. Make requests and ask for His help, and trust Him to answer in His time.

I suggest you find a pattern for prayer that works well for you, and then just pray it with joy day by day!

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