Chapter 13. What to Pray About. In the past century or so, many Christians have been taught that it is unspiritual to pray the Lord's Prayer. But Jesus instructed us to pray it.
One of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." So He said to them, "When you pray, say, 'Our Father in heaven.'" (Luke 11:1-2) And again, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "In this manner therefore pray: Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." (Matthew 6:9-13) There is probably no other prayer we can pray and know beyond a doubt that every word we say is inspired by the Holy Spirit. So the wise and obedient Christian will pray the Lord's Prayer. Notice that I said, "Pray the Lord's Prayer." Don't just recite it by rote memory without your heart entering into the prayer. Make every word of it your own.
I like to pray this prayer at the beginning of my devotional hour after coming into God's presence. Others may prefer to close their devotional time with this prayer. Most of us know this prayer so well that there is the constant danger of not thinking about the words as we're praying them. I find it meaningful to first pray the Lord's Prayer just as Jesus gave it to us. Then I pray it again, but the second time I paraphrase it and personalize it.
For example, "Our great and most wonderful Father in heaven, may Your name be sanctified and glorified everywhere. Help me to live my life today so that my life will hallow and glorify Your name. May Your kingdom come soon and rule over the entire earth. Father, use me in any way You desire to serve Your kingdom. May Your will be done everywhere here on earth just as the angels in heaven are doing it. But again, Father, help me to do Your will this day in all of my actions and thoughts.
I ask only that You provide for me this day what I truly need to live, and I thank You, Father, that You have provided much more than I actually need. Help me to use this surplus to bless others. Please forgive me my sins as I forgive others. And help me, Father, to be more forgiving, to keep accounts of no injuries. Please lead me today away from the path of temptation. I know Satan would like for me to do his will today, not yours.
Please protect me from whatever schemes he has in mind for me." The idea here is not to improve on the Lord's Prayer. We can't do that. Rather, the thought is to paraphrase it and personalize it in such a manner that we have to slow down and think of every word we're saying and mean it. Having prayed the Lord's Prayer, we know that we have prayed for the things Christ says are the most important. We are now free to pray about other significant matters.
Generally speaking, these other matters fall under one of the following six categories: Thanksgiving, Praise, Intercession, Personal Needs, Personal Guidance, and Confession. Thanksgiving and Praise. Thanksgiving should be at the top of our prayer lists.
"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:18) We have so much to be thankful for: life itself, our salvation, our spouse and family, God's word, our church, friends, and homes, our food, clothing, and necessities of life, our employment. That list is, of course, just a start. As we grow in contentment and thankfulness, the list of things to be thankful for keeps growing.
In addition to praising God for the personal things He has done for us, we can praise Him for His attributes, His creation, His actions in human history, and what He has planned for the future of the universe. Intercession. After thanking God, we should intercede on behalf of our family, friends, church family, neighbors, co-workers, and other people with whom we interact. We can pray that God deliver them from certain trials or for victory over temptations and weaknesses.
We can also pray for their spiritual and physical health and for particular blessings in their lives. We should also pray for our government leaders, legislators, and judges. Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.
(1 Timothy 2:1-3) Paul and the other New Testament Christians interceded for one another on a regular basis. Paul told Timothy, "Without ceasing, I remember you in my prayers night and day." (2 Timothy 1:3) How many people do we intercede for in that manner? One reason Paul was so effective as a missionary was because he spent so much time interceding on behalf of the people to whom he ministered.
He and Timothy declared to the Colossians, "We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." (Colossians 1:3, 9-10) Imagine the spiritual health of our congregations if we all prayed for one another's spiritual well-being the way Paul and Timothy prayed for others.
But don't wait for others to begin doing it. Start praying daily for each family in your congregation. Not only will this bless others, but it will also have an amazing spiritual effect on you. William Law wrote about this aspect of intercession. "Such intercessions, besides the great love they display, will have a mighty effect upon your own heart. It will dispose you to every other good duty and to the exercise of every other virtue toward such persons that you may have so often been praying about.
For there is nothing that makes us love a person so much as praying for them. And when you can once do this sincerely for any person, you have fitted your soul for the performance of everything that is kind and civil towards him." Personal Needs and Guidance After thanking God and interceding on behalf of others, it's time to pray for ourselves. The order Jesus gave us in the Lord's Prayer is to pray for spiritual matters first and our material needs second.
In chapter 10, we talked about the need to examine ourselves. What is the condition of our spiritual health? In what areas of our lives are we spiritually weak? What fruits of the Spirit do we lack? Are we having problems in our marriage, at our jobs, with friends, or with members of our congregation? Has anyone wronged us whom we haven't forgiven? Are we struggling with any sins, such as lust, gossip, impatience, or envy? Do we have a critical spirit? Are we coveting any material things or spiritual possessions?
We should pray about these matters. We should also pray that God will help us to see sins and weaknesses in ourselves to which we are perhaps blind. Having prayed first for our spiritual needs, it is now appropriate to pray for our physical needs. Notice how Jesus worded this: "Give us this day our daily bread." He didn't authorize us to pray for tomorrow's bread, let alone to pray for riches and vanities.
Jesus also purposefully worded the request in the collective: "Give us our daily bread." So we should not only pray for our own needs but also for the needs of others. In fact, if we live in the United States or Western Europe, our needs have been most likely more than met. We should still pray for our daily bread as Jesus commanded, but we should particularly pray for food and other necessities of life for those living in underdeveloped countries.
Confession We should never conclude our devotional hour without confessing our sins. Why? John explains, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." (1 John 1:8-10) Two things stand out in this passage concerning our prayer life.
First, we should never imagine we have no sins to confess. Second, God's promise of forgiveness and cleansing is conditioned on our confessing our sins. Some Christians imagine that all of their future sins were pre-forgiven when they were originally saved. However, the Scriptures make no such promise. In fact, they expressly tell us otherwise.
"He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy." (Proverbs 28:13) Needless to say, confession is meaningless if we're not repentant. If we don't have godly sorrow for our sins, our confession doesn't mean much. Furthermore, Jesus conditions forgiveness of sins on our forgiving others. "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Matthew 6:14-15) Prayer List You may find it helpful to keep a printed prayer list. This way you won't forget to pray for matters needing your attention. If you use a computer on a regular basis, you might find it useful to keep your prayer list on your computer, where you can easily modify it and print updated versions every day or perhaps every week.
But Christians have been keeping prayer lists and prayer journals for centuries before the computer was ever invented. So you can easily keep a handwritten list, crossing off items that no longer need prayer and adding new items. Don't let your prayer list become stale. When you tell people at church or other places that you will pray for them or for a particular need, be sure to add it to your prayer list right away so you don't forget about it. What if my mind wanders?
If your mind wanders while you pray, take heart. It indicates you're praying long enough for your mind to have time to wander. People who only pray for a minute or two a day don't have that problem. You can also take heart in the fact that nearly every spiritual writer from the Middle Ages through today talks about this problem. This suggests that even these spiritual giants dealt with this problem in their prayer lives. Remember, it is better to pray and have your mind wander than not to pray at all.
So don't let a wandering mind discourage you from praying. God is very patient. At the same time, you should analyze the situation. Where does your mind go? Does it turn to problems that are weighing on you? If so, consciously bring those matters into your prayer. Do you use a prayer list when praying? If not, you may find it helpful. I find that my mind wanders much less when I'm going down a list. Also, add the problem of a wandering mind to your list of things to pray about.
God can help you drown out distracting thoughts while you're praying. I'll share with you another secret to overcoming wandering thoughts. Break your prayer time into a series of very short prayers. Once you've completed a thought, close the prayer in Jesus' name and say, "Amen." Then when your mind is refocused, pray another short prayer until you have once again completed an entire thought, then close that prayer.
By praying a series of short prayers, it gives your mind the opportunity to explore other thoughts between these short prayers instead of your mind wandering in the middle of a long prayer. Up to this point in our devotional hour, we have been doing most of the talking. It's important now to let God talk to us.