What is Prayer?
There are many definitions of what prayer is and many
good examples of prayers. One definition states:
"Prayer is the
communicative partnering with God for the building of God's Kingdom in one's
personal life and on earth." We will be using this
definition and perspective as our point of reference for prayer.
Directing Prayer - To Whom?
For some people, the experience of prayer simply involves
hoping, thinking, or envisioning the best for someone. For other people,
prayer is directed to an entity. We recognize that there are and have been
hundreds of gods and spirits throughout history (perhaps some real and some
imagined) that people have asked for help. While we're certainly respectful
of these various deities and spirits, the Prayer Center remains focused on
the one God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, that is acknowledged by other
faiths as well, such as "The Creator" in Native American faiths. Much of the
information we've gathered and researched seems to indicate that this God is
the creator of the universe and remains in highest authority above the
entire spiritual realm and known physical universe. While this opinion may be subjective, our belief is
that our prayer efforts are most effective when they are directed to the God of
the Bible because this is the God that we are most familiar with. There are
numerous situations and circumstances in the Bible in which people ask:
"please pray to your God for me/us." This happened with Moses,
Joseph, Daniel, and Jonah. This is, in part, a recognition of the authority
of that person's God, but it also reflects the basic understanding that
people's prayers are more effective when prayed to their own God - the God
they know and the God that knows them. By contrast, it would be a rare
situation when someone would ask a person for help and say, "Please pray to
my God." It is our belief that the God of the Bible is loving, kind,
compassionate, forgiving, merciful, gracious, and desires the best for
everyone. This is the perspective and foundation we are operating from.
Personal Foundations of Prayer
Through regular ongoing prayer it is possible to build
a foundation of prayer that will help establish a stable and effective life.
With this in mind, here are seven progressively interdependent prayer areas
that an individual can focus on:
Faith. Every area of your life is build upon
faith, the spiritual and religious parts of your life that hold everything
together. As you will see, it is from this foundation that all else is
built. Pray that God will guide you on your faith journey so that
your faith, wisdom, and spiritual understanding will grow in width, depth,
and breadth.
Mentoring. Next to your relationship with God,
some of your most important and life transforming relationships will be with
mentors or people who you mentor. If faith is the mortar of our life, then
our mentors are like the stones. Being accountable to others and allowing
people to have a positive influence in our lives helps us be more loving and
effective at serving our family and friends. Pray that God will send
the right mentors into your life.
Health. All the faith and mentoring in the world
isn't going to do any good if you are sick and can't put your faith and
training into practice through serving others. Health is a huge priority.
Pray that God will give you wisdom, discipline, and self control in the
areas of nutrition and exercise.
Career. Having a career or profession is a very
important part of developing skills you can use to help others. It is also
essential to maintaining good financial stability. Pray that God will
guide you into knowledge and wisdom in a career that you find interesting
and rewarding.
Finances. If you are healthy and working at a
career you enjoy, you have much of what it takes to be financially stable.
Pray that God would give you contentment with simplicity so that you
can live on significantly less than what you earn.
Family. By having the above essential areas of
life in order, you will be able to better serve your family and friends. If
you neglect any of the above areas of life, you will be doing a disservice
to those you love because you won't be able to take care of them or even
take care of yourself. Pray that God will show you and equip you to
love and serve your family.
Outreach. In order for the world to improve, we
must reach out to make the world a better place. Once we've effectively done
our 'inreach' as mentioned in the prayer points above, we will then be able
to have an effective outreach. Pray that God will show you what your
calling in life is and equip you in all ways to be effective at making the
world a better place.
Notice that each successive area of life described above
relies in part on the previous, so that each area of life has the purpose of
serving and enhancing the next for the end collective and synergistic goal
of improving the world for everyone.
Prayer Journaling
Writing down your prayers (and subsequent answers to
prayer) can be a great way to document significant life events. Having a
prayer journal can help make prayer time more meaningful and effective. Some
creative ways to journal and document your faith and prayer journey include
taking photos, audio, or video of significant people, places, or events.
Types of Prayer
There are many kinds of prayer, here are a few to
consider incorporating into your prayer time:
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Thanksgiving. Prayers of thanksgiving are very
important. If you use a prayer journal (mentioned above) it is possible to
develop a record of the many things you have to be thankful for. This can
become the source of encouragement later on if you are discouraged. |
|
Worship. Prayers of worship may include music and
come from a thankful and appreciative heart acknowledging God's goodness.
Hymns and religious songs are commonly written as prayers put to music. |
|
Request for Wisdom. Solomon asked for wisdom and
it is recorded that he became one of the wisest people in the world. Gaining
and applying wisdom can help make our lives more effective and meaningful.
This may also include asking for a deeper understanding of purpose, focus,
vision, calling, or mission for your own life. |
|
Request for Personal Need / Want. Praying for your
own needs may seem selfish. However, if you are praying to be better
equipped to more effectively serve and care for others, then your motives
are good and your prayers are indirectly for those who will be served by
your life. |
|
Request for Favor. Having favor with people is
important. It is important that your motives are right and that your desire
for favor is for the end purpose of better serving others for the common
good. |
|
Intercession. This type of prayer involves
pleading for and desiring good for someone on their behalf. |
Category Prayer List - Prayers to Heal the Planet
It is common for people to have prayer lists that include
family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, leaders, and others. One
effective way of guiding and enhancing prayer is to have a prayer list
organized by categories. There will probably be specific prayer needs.
However, here are some examples of categories and how to pray for those in
each category.
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Individuals. Pray for the seven areas of life
mentioned under the heading 'Personal Foundations of Prayer.' |
|
Marriages and Couples. Pray for unity, clear
communications, positive and uplifting communications, respect, healthy and mutually fulfilling interactions,
equality, growth, time for relationship building and strengthening. |
|
Families. Pray for unity, clear communications,
respect, healthy and mutually fulfilling interactions. |
|
Issues, Causes, Programs, and Concepts. Pray that socially beneficial
issues and concepts will be embraced. |
|
Leaders. There are all kinds of leaders in our
society today: community leaders, activist leaders, business leaders, and
leaders in education or other fields. Pray for wisdom, excellence in
leadership skills, ability to listen and communicate, ability to serve
constituency, vision. |
|
Professionals in Public Service, Law Enforcement,
Military Service, Fire Safety/Prevention, Doctors, Nurses, and Emergency
Medical Care. These people are often called to work long hours and are
sometimes called away with little advance notice. Work can require traveling
far from home and family. Pray for safety, pray for time with family, pray
for reasonable work schedules, pray for alertness, pray for strong support
networks. |
|
Organizations. Pray for clear communications,
vision, fiscal sustainability and responsibility. |
|
Businesses & Entrepreneurs. Pray for insight,
vision, wisdom, quality employees, socially responsible practices, ability
to pursue service to others above seeking money. |
|
Actors. Same as prayer for individuals with the
addition of praying for wisdom and discernment regarding finances, product
endorsements, and avoiding roles that support or encourage self/socially
destructive behaviors. |
|
Writers & Traveling Writers. Pray for inspiration,
creativity, renewal, quality time and a special place to write. For writers
who are traveling around interviewing people and doing necessary research
for a book, pray for great favor everywhere they go, for sustained health,
times of refreshing, for generous hosts, that they will meet just the right
people, that the necessary funding would be available, pray that the funding
would stretch and be more than enough to complete their project. |
|
Film/Video Producers. Pray for cooperative weather,
good lighting, good sound, no technical problems, reliable transportation, meeting the right people,
coming in under budget, not forgetting necessary equipment, plenty of
funding, quality programming that inspires people with a hopeful message
resulting in life changing action that heals the planet. |
|
Governments, States, and Nations. Pray that
nations would not be imperialist saber-rattling war-bent and globally
exploitative of other nations and the earth. Pray that nations would grow to
become increasingly self-sustaining both environmentally and economically.
Pray for nations that are suffering to be restored and healed. Pray for
nations to reach out to help and heal other nations, just as civilized
people do on a micro-level. |
Please let us know if you have any suggestions for
additional categories or ways to pray for those in the categories mentioned
above. [click
here for feedback form]
Prayer Tours
One effective prayer activity is to organize a prayer
tour. Prayer tours are typically similar to a tour you might arrange through
a travel agency, except the focus and purpose of the tour is to pray for the
people and places you visit covering the various prayer categories mentioned
above. It would also be possible to arrange a prayer tour of your own
community. Some people do this in the form of prayer mapping or prayer
walking to cover entire cities and regions in prayer.
Fasting
One way to enhance your prayer life and spiritual life is
to have times of fasting. While fasting is an integral part of the religious
observance for some religions such as Judaism and Islam, other religions do
not have clear guidelines for the practice of fasting. Regardless of this,
it is good to establish your own personal times of fasting as you ar able.
Fasting usually involves abstaining from food and other pleasures. Some
people have chosen a life of fasting from some activities.
Prayer Matrix
A prayer matrix is a dynamic and interactive three or
four dimensional grid-like model that illustrates independent as well as
relational prayer areas, topics, points, or concerns. A simple prayer matrix
can be drawn on a piece of paper using a table-like structure. Down the left hand side of the page, list people, families, organizations, businesses, entities, institutions, communities, governments, or issues to be prayed for. In the case of individuals and families, the columns to the right can indicate faith, health, employment, finances, family, outreach, and effective living.
Prayer Resources
For additional information and resources, please visit
our Prayer Resources page. [click
here]
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