How To Always Pray In Line With God’s Will

By Fin Sheridan

I know what you’re thinking… “That’s what the Internet needs – another post about prayer!” Whilst it’s true, reading about prayer is not as beneficial as actually praying, some pointers on HOW to pray might be more worthwhile than you think. After all, the Christian community is in general agreement about if we should pray (we should) but it’s the ‘what’ and ‘how’ that trip us up a bit.

Do you ever struggle with what to say to God? If you don’t, can you please contact me asap because I have so many questions for you. But if you do, then be encouraged, you’re not alone. It can be hard to know what to say to God sometimes. Sometimes just we don’t have the words. Other times, we just don’t know how to pray “in line with God’s will”. What’s the right thing to pray?

I’m increasingly dissatisfied with my habitual cliche praying. It’s all too easy to slip into buzzwords and phrases that I’ve prayed hundreds of times before, with no thought to their meaning or to the One that I’m talking to. It’s too easy to pray on autopilot.

My words might be true but they have little Spirit in them. My lips can be near and my heart can be far. Prayer isn’t just words, it’s meant to be more than that. It’s meant to carry chunks of me too; my heart, my soul, my worries, my meaning, my thoughts. Not just scattered seed of postcard platitudes.

“When we pray the words of the Bible, we can be confident that we’re praying the will of God because we’re using his words.”

One of the most helpful ways to give your prayers substance is to take the words of the Bible and pray those, putting yourself into the sentences, rooting yourself in the words of life. What does this look like? Let’s take a look and see.

There are prayers already within the Bible that we can pray. Paul did it a lot as he wrote his letters to the various churches of the world. Here’s a good example from 2 Thessalonians 1:11-13 (hint- he quite often does this in the beginning of his letters!):

“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now, all you do is substitute the “you” for “I”. Take what Paul is praying for you and pray it for yourself. Your prayer might sound or look like this instead:

“God, please make me worthy of your calling. Would you fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by your power so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in me, and me in him, according to your grace?”

Simple but effective. The words of the Bible are powerful. When we pray them, they realign our hearts and thoughts, from our agenda to heaven’s. We can be confident that we’re praying the will of God because we’re using his words. We move from just rambling words to real prayer.

Prince of Peace

Everlasting Father

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