The Power of Prayer by Melodie Boone

THE POWER OF PRAYER

LEARNING TO TALK TO GOD AS A FRIEND

BY MELODIE BOONE

Talking to God can be intimidating to new believers. Learning the proper way to approach God, can stop a new convert from making a serious commitment to daily prayer. You may ask yourself, what do I say? How do I say it? Do I have to be super spiritual to approach God in a serious way?

These questions challenged me when I decided to recommit my life to Jesus Christ. When I rededicated my life to the Lord, I joined a local church, I committed to attending Sunday Services and weekly Bible Study, but I didn’t have the confidence to pray like those around me in church.

As I attended services, my Pastor often spoke on the importance of prayer. As a young woman who wanted to invest in her relationship with God, I was determined to build a prayer life. I read scripture on the importance of prayer and when to pray. Men ought always to pray, the scriptures stated (Luke 18:1) and we should meet God in the early hours of the morning. (Psalm 63:1)

So I committed to talking to God, every day. I felt it was expected of me and that I needed it if I was going to grow in my relationship with him. So every day I set aside a specific time to pray and talk to God. But as life would have it, when I missed my daily communion with God or if I slept late, I allowed disappointment to overwhelm me. I, then, began to judge my relationship with God. When I missed those benchmarks, I felt that I was shortchanging my relationship…and more importantly, I felt as if I was a “bad Christian”.

If you are a new convert or you want to build a more intimate relationship with him, you may want to invest more time in prayer with God. These simple guidelines may help you spend more time in conversation with God, which will allow you to grow a more personal relationship with him. But in building your relationship with God, the important thing to remember is to begin. God will meet you right where you are. Don’t allow yourself to feel that you are a “bad Christian, when you miss your prayer time or you don’t pray as eloquent as others.

Hopefully the following guidelines will be seen as simple steps that will set you on a path of growing closer to God through your daily conversations with him. I hope that will help you build a more intimate time of fellowship with Him.

Talk to God as if he were a close friend… someone you can trust to keep your darkest secrets. Don’t worry about the language or how it will be perceived…just talk. You may have heard of different models on how to pray and those models can be useful in helping you established a prayer life. And later, I will share a simple one with you. But if you are just starting out, and you want to look at your prayer life in a totally different way… don’t get bogged down with formulas or schedules. Just begin by talking to God as if he were a friend.

Allow yourself, to bring down the walls of secrecy and shame and tell him. Talk about what you did, what happened to you, the thing that embarrassed you, or the thing that brought you the most joy.

Talk about the affair or the betrayal...or the time you felt as if you disappointed your son or daughter and the guilt that you feel about it.

Share the highlights of your week and how you saw his hand throughout your day. The important thing is that you talk. If it helps, pretend you are sitting across a table at Starbucks or sitting on a bench in a park, and share your heart. Be comfortable with him and know that he is listening.

Talk to God anywhere…you don’t have to be in a special place to talk to God. We are often taught that we need to have a special location (what we in Christian circles call a prayer closet…Matthew 6:6) when we pray. And if you do have a special place where you meet God, that is wonderful. But don’t let not having a special consecrated place for prayer stop you. You can talk to God anywhere…in your car…on the beach…in the bathroom…in the gym while walking on the treadmill…or while you are washing your car or washing the breakfast dishes. It doesn’t matter where you are…the important thing is keeping the communication lines open.

I am on the road a lot traveling up and down the East Coast. While I am in my car, I talk to God. I normally start off by playing the radio or listening to a business podcast…and then I can feel the need to talk to God about an issue or concern that often wells up while I am being still. So I quickly turn off all the distractions and talk to him.

It is in those moments, while I am driving those five and six hour commutes, that I release all that weight that I carry around in my heart and mind. I dump those issues at the feet of Jesus and allow him to hear what is bothering me about them. Sometimes I find peace about an issue…and sometimes, just getting it off of my mind helps tremendously.

Sometimes, he ministers to me about it… where it is no longer a major concern… other times, he releases the pressure and I can deal with it another day. Wherever you are, know God is willing to listen to every care and concern.

Don’t get caught up in whether you can hear God talk back…because you probably won’t. We have to have confidence that God is listening…that is the whole purpose of prayer. He is there listening, concerned about everything that concerns you. So don’t beat yourself up, when you don’t get an immediate answer about what you are praying about…remember, often God doesn’t come in a loud voice, or the rushing wind…he often comes in a still small voice. The problem is we are often too busy that we miss the still small voice when he speaks.

So many times we get mad at God because we can’t hear him or we don’t see the manifestation of an answered prayer. When this happens, my advice to you is to keep on praying. Remember, you are talking to your friend. Many times, friends just listen. Many times, friends wait to respond, because they know you can’t handle what they need to say or share.

So just keep talking to God about the major and mundane things in your life. He will give you the response you need when he thinks you can handle the responsibility that comes along with it. That response may be to wait on him.

Know that this time is your time with God, no one else’s. So don’t allow friends or family to criticize your prayer time. We all have opinions on how we should pray, when we pray and specifically what to pray. But this is your relationship, your private time with God where you are sharing yourself, your concerns and your prayer requests.

Don’t allow anyone to make you feel bad just because you don’t get up at 5am and you don’t pray for an hour. That is a wonderful goal to have but if you are just beginning your spiritual walk, meeting God where you are is more important. And only you know what that looks like. Decide what you want your prayer time to look like. Do you want to have a special place to meet God every day? Do you want to have a specific time when you pray? Will you give God a certain amount of time so you can talk to him?

Lastly, as you begin to build your prayer time with God, consider using the ACTS model. This is a simple acrostic to follow as you get comfortable with praying. The ACTS model leads you down a simple path of prayer as you (A) adore God, (C) confess to God, (T) give thanks to God and (S) supplicate ( means to ask) for yourself and others.

As you begin to talk to God, talk to God about how you feel about him. This is a good place to adore God and tell Him how wonderful he is…but what if you don’t feel that way? What if you consider God as a bad spirit that has allowed bad things to happen to you? That is okay…tell him exactly how you feel. He can handle anything you share with him. Hopefully you can get to a point where you can adore him, or just try saying something nice about him.

Next, confess the things you did, the thoughts you had, the bad things you have done and those areas in your life where you feel you came up short. The great thing about prayer is, these confessions are safe with God. The important things about confession is, when you confess what you have done, you have gotten it off your chest and out of your heart. Give these all over to God and let these failures and disappointments go…and simply begin again.

Thanksgiving is a place in prayer where you can share your gratitude with God… thanking him for any and everything. Whatever you are grateful for, allow God to know just how thankful you are. Being thankful shows God you acknowledge his goodness and kindness towards you. So be grateful and tell God thank you for all that he has done. And if you can’t think of anything you are grateful for, do like the mothers of the church, and just exhale. Being grateful for the ability to breathe is a great place to start.

Last, but not least, is supplication. This is where you ask for yourself or you ask for someone else. What do you need? What do you want? How can God help you? What does a friend or family member need? When we supplicate or ask God, come expecting God to help you. That is a bold assumption, but when you ask God in faith, the Bible tells us that we can believe that we will receive it. (Matthew 7:7)

When we use the ACTS model as a stepping stone to enrich our prayer life, we realize it is a powerful road map that helps us navigate new avenues in prayer. Consider using the ACTS model as a tool that will help you draw closer to God.

Prayer is a powerful tool that will enable all of us to connect with God. Commit to spending time with him in your own unique way. As clichéd as this sounds, know that God is waiting to hear from you. He wants you talk to him and to use prayer as a key that unlocks the door to building intimacy with him.

But as you begin, remember, you are simply talking to a friend. Nothing could be easier than that.

The wonderful thing about supplication is, we CAN ask. We can ask God for anything. Where many struggle in asking is, God may not give us what we are asking for, when we are asking for it. And it is that place where we can build patience. Learn to wait on God and for your answers in prayer.

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Melodie Boone is a minister, vision strategist and executive leadership coach. She has a passion for church administration and loves coaching Pastors and Church leaders how to transform ministry, improve congregation engagement, and to build membership retention. For more information, please contact her at melodieboone.com