Come and P.R.A.Y.

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16)

Did you have a favorite prayer growing up?  Did your family pray before meals?  Did you grow up saying prayers before bed?

I grew up saying this prayer before dinner every night:

Come Lord Jesus, be our guest.  Let these gifts to us be blessed.  Amen

My family still says this prayer before dinner.  I also grew up saying this prayer before bed:

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.  Amen

I did not bring that prayer into my parenting of the boys.  They grew up learning about prayer as a conversation.  We would begin each prayer with something we wanted to thank God for; then we would say the “God Bless..”  prayers.  You know, God bless mommy, God bless Daddy, God bless Grandma…..You get it.  We then touch on confession and forgiveness and anything else on their mind.

Today, I love to study and read about prayer.  I have taken some Spiritual Gifts test, and score high on the gift of Intercessory Prayer.  Intercessory prayer is the act of praying to God on behalf of others.

Over the years I have developed a pattern of prayer I find works well for me.  It is the P.R.A.Y. method of praying.  Let me break it down.

Praise – This is where we give glory to God for being God.  Isaiah 61:3 tells us to put on a garment of praise.  I like to meditate on either the names of God or the attributes of God.

Repent – We start by thanking God for His promises to forgive sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  I invite the Holy Spirit to search my heart and bring to mind any sins I need to deal with.  I then ask God to forgive me of the sins that I cannot see.

Ask – This is probably the most known and used part of prayer.  It is good to come before God with a clean heart, having already dealt with repentance.  This is where we spend time talking to God about EVERYthing and ANYthing.  Nothing is off the table.  It is also the time to intercede (praying on behalf of others) for our friends and family.

“Don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done!” -Philippians 4:6

Yield – Every prayer we offer up to God is an act of us yielding our will to Gods.  When we can come to the place in our heart where we recognize Gods will for our life as the most important, we can genuinely yield our ways and see a change in our lives.

“Father…not my will, but yours be done” -Luke 22:42.

My prayer for you is to find that applying this method of prayer will make your relationship with God stronger and you would see some mighty, God inspired change in your life and in the life of those you are praying for.

Let us close in prayer:

Abba Father, you are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of my days.  Your creation is eternal, and your beauty surrounds us as we approach the throne of grace with confidence.  We ask that you would cleanse our hearts of our sins, Holy Spirit come and search our hearts and reveal to us any sin we need to repent of.  We confess to you all our sins, known and unknown and ask for your mercy and forgiveness.  Be with us in our times of need and teach us how to pray authentic, sincere prayers.  We pray, not for our will, but yours be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  We pray this in the precious name of God our Father.  Lord, hear my prayers.  Amen