What is prayer? Why do I need it? Isn’t God going to do what He wants, anyway? It’s been said that “Prayer is not meant to get us out of anything but to get us into something.” Prayer is dwelling in the heart of God. Prayer may or may not include words. Jesus didn’t necessarily mean there would be a dialogue when He said: “Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:4, NASB). Indeed, as Henry Nouwen said, “Prayer is the most concrete way we can make our home in God.”

I’ve also heard that prayer is hard to get into but hard to get out of. Your biggest hurdle is to start. Just start praying. Don’t worry about what you say but talk to God like you’re talking to a friend. When I struggle to begin praying, I set my timer for five minutes and stop when it chimes. God loves it even when we start with even short prayers. The most important thing is to start praying and keep praying every day.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t follow a pattern. If I don’t structure my prayer time, it can be all about me and my needs. I come to God not to get to know His heart but to dump all of my requests upon Him. Indeed, God wants to hear our prayers. The Lord is near to us. Deuteronomy 4:7 states, “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?”

The best prayers communicate with God with different motivations. Here is a model that my mentor taught me years ago. It’s the acronym, P.R.A.Y. I hope it helps you grow closer to God and balance your prayer life as it has for me.

Praise and Thank God

“P” – Praise God. We begin by praising God and thanking Him. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name (Psalm 100:4). Praising God is singing, dancing, and shouting for joy for how great, mighty, timeless, and awesome God is. Psalm 19:1 states, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” As you talk to God, proclaim with confidence His attributes like His goodness, faithfulness, kindness, power, and gentleness with us. Be creative. We can always find things to thank God for, including our beating heart, clean water, food on the table, friends, family, and being able to live another day.

Praising God is also worshipping Him. Worshipping God is about keeping Him first place in your life. Worship is about you letting God be God in your life. As we worship, we are telling God who He is. Of course, it’s not the Lord who needs the reminder but us! Placing God above everything else is the most loving thing we can do–then, all of our troubles, concern and requests can rightly fall under the sovereignty of God.

Repent

“R” – Repent. Repenting is a gift. It’s not a time of groveling over our sins. Jesus died for those! If you haven’t confessed your sins in the past few days, this is a perfect time to do so. One of the aspects I miss about attending the Roman Catholic Church is that we visited a priest who leads us in the sacrament of forgiveness. To be clear: It was never the priest who had the power to forgive us, but he was there to guide us into repentance, restitution, and penance. Talking to someone about your struggles releases the burden. James says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (5:16). But repenting is much more than confession. The heart of repentance is renewing your mind. It’s turning away from sin. It’s one thing to admit your sin, but there is something else altogether holy about changing your mind and not sinning anymore. “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2, NASB).

Ask God

“A” – Ask God to help you. This step is where we offer God our prayer requests. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). God loves answering our prayers. It’s easy to get stuck or discouraged in our prayer life when we don’t see immediate results. Jettison a fast-food prayer mentality. God needs us to pray for some issues for weeks, months, or years. That’s why keeping a praying journal is so effective. It’s good to track how the Lord is working both in the short term and long term. So, pray about everything and eagerly see how God works. The more your spirit is attuned to what God’s spirit is doing, the more you’ll see God move in your life. Then you can jilt the word “coincidence.” When you are aligned with God, cut the word “coincidence” out of your vocabulary. For that matter, erase “serendipitous,” as well. Everything good that happens happens because of God. Write every prayer down, and thank God when He answers that prayer.

Yield to God’s Will

“Y” – Yield to God’s Will. No matter what happens, we submit ourselves to God. The best place we can ever be is not in the fulfillment of our requests but the center of His will. Commit to God that you want His will no matter what. God uses a heart truly surrendered to Him. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He said, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, NASB). Yielding to God is living a surrendered life.

This model isn’t to make you feel restricted. Instead, it’s to free you to experience God in different ways as you pray. I use the P.R.A.Y. acronym when I need guidance, but I sometimes mix it up. Often, I add another “P” as the beginning to “Pause” before I begin praying. Spending one or two minutes of quietness before the Lord quiets my mind and steadies my thoughts before I start. I also add another “R” for reading Scripture. I try to spend at least ten to twenty in the Bible every day.