How to Pray
5. How to pray.
My recommendation for you on the “how do I pray?” front is to take the Lord’s prayer—use Matthew 6:9ff (“ff” means whatever verses follow that are on the same subject). Print it out.
When you do
this, you can categorize your prayers in the categories that Jesus lists in this prayer. Each line is a category of sorts.
And please notice in the Lord’s Prayer how little is about us and our grocery list of requests. That list of requests we might have is OK (it fits under “daily bread”), but most of the Lord's Prayer is focused on God, the kingdom of His Son, and our forgiving others. Praying with the Lord’s Prayer in front of you as your guide will help to focus your prayer much more on thanks and praise to the Lord and things on His agenda (His Son’s kingdom) than on “help me to have a good day” (me, me, me). Praying God- and other-centered prayer (as you use the Lord's Prayer) will make your soul feel good. God's wired you not to think about yourself all the time. It's just your sin nature that makes you self-concerned
That's it for now.
Last post on prayer next time.
