Back in the early days when I first began to seek the Lord in prayer, I really knew very, very little about praying at all. After all, it was not something that I naturally knew or had learned automatically.
But the church I started attending, it was a big part of their day. They had several in-church prayer meetings each day for one hour at 6 and noon and 6 p.m. seven days a week.
I started going. I hooked up with other individuals to start praying with. But I felt like I had so little to offer and so much to learn.
One of the things that really helped was going through the Psalms, of course. The other thing that helped was praying with prayers. That is, other people who knew what prayer was and how to go pray.
And I studied what they did. Listened to what they did. And started to try and incorporate that into some of the praying that I was trying to do.
One of the things that also helped was I came across an old hymnal. And in the hymnal, along with the songs, were a number of prayers from the Psalms and other prayers of the church for their liturgical services.
Not knowing any different or any better, I started going through them and reading them as prayers. And they were a big help to me back then, and they still are today.
If you, or if someone you know, is a little newer to prayer or would just like to grow in their prayer life, sometimes it’s helpful to read a prayer and pray a prayer that utilizes somebody else’s words.
I like a number of these, let me share a few with you.
Hear my prayer, O Lord. Let my cry come to Thee.
This is select verses from Psalm 102.
Hear the Prayers, and pray along in the podcast and make these prayers your own.
Question: What is one thing you’ve found particularly helpful in learning to pray? If it is a book, or article, or a simple idea, please bless us with a comment about that.
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