A Challenge to Pray!

A Challenge to Pray!

Not only do few Christians ever really pray, few really spend time praying at all. Yes we offer prayers in our time of need or when something urgent happens, but when is the last time along with reading your Bible or another time you got alone and poured out your heart to God and prayed? This week the challenge set before you is to pray! We should and need to be praying as Christians. It is the way we communicate with God. We are told to pray without ceasing, which means to be in the state to always be ready to pray to God. We find in the Bible we are to pray for all men including those in government positions. Paul many times asked people to pray for him and so that should lead us to pray for preachers and missionaries all around the world! We are also told to seek God and ask things from him! Clearly in the Bible there is a major focus on prayer and the challenge as a Christian is will you spend time praying? I am not asking you to pray for hours upon hours, rather start with just a few minutes and pray and then let it grow out of that. With the challenge to pray I would like to give some helpful tips on how to pray.

1. Get a prayer journal— Get yourself a journal or today there are many apps you can use to pray. I would recommend just a normal paper journal because it is so easy on a phone, laptop or tablet to get distracted by others things when you go to pray. Write down prayer request that you have in this journal, but also write down prayer request you hear other people give. Right down the date you started praying for the request and also the date God answered them! THis is a great way to help you remember who and what to pray for, but also praise God as he hears and answers your prayers!
2. Get a place to pray— Find yourself a place that you can get alone with God and pray. It can be anywhere, but should be a place that is quiet and distraction free. Find a place or multiple places you can use to pray
3. Start praying— You can get a prayer journal, and a place to pray, but if you do not actually start praying it will do you no good. Determine yourself and time and place and then start small with 5 or 10 minutes each day and pray. As you do this and your prayer list grows so will the time you spend praying!
4. Get a world map— Get yourself a map of the world and as you pray pick a couple countries out to pray for. Pray for the needs in those countreis, but then after you pray for them later that day go find out information about those countries so next time you know how to better pray for them
5. Spend time praising God— It is really easy for us to just ask, ask, ask from God and spend but a few seconds praising him. If you start off your prayer time by spending time praising Him it will help set your heart and mind in the right place as you can go boldly before him and ask for the request you have! Take time to praise God not only for what he has done, but for who he is!
6. Pray the Bible— Many times when we pray (I am guilty of this) it feels like we pray everything and only a few minutes has past. We then try to pray more but keep repeating ourselves and praying the same things. One of the best ways to pray is to pray the Bible. The Psalms are meant to be praises and prayers to God. Each day pick out a Psalm and pray it back to God. As you pray it back to God personalize it with needs you have or others have and pray the Bible back to God! It is a great way to help grow your prayer life, but also will expand the time you spend praying without going in circles and saying the same  10 things 50 times!

The challenge is set for you to pray, now the task is up to you! Why not take 5 minutes today and go pray. Prayer is vital in a Christinas life and if we want to see God work in our lives and see the world reached with the gospel, we must spend time praying!