I didn’t know much about prayer. But then in my second year of university, I was given about 15 books on the topic. I had recently been given the grandiose title of Prayer Secretary at my university Christian Union. So I wanted to understand the topic more. Since then, I discovered that while some books can be helpful, others can be outright misleading. I also learnt that there is nothing like actually praying to grow you in the skill and practice of prayer.
Here are the mistakes I have made—and lessons learnt—in the 20 years since my second year at university.
1. Misunderstanding How Important Prayer Is
I could have titled this one simply: never praying. But looking back at my own life, my lack of prayer was largely due to my sheer ignorance of its importance. If the gospel reestablishes our lost relationship with God, prayer is what maintains it. Please don’t mishear me. I don’t mean that our prayer is what sustains our salvation. Rather, prayer is the joyful opportunity that results from our salvation.
If the gospel reestablishes our lost relationship with God, prayer is what maintains it.
Think about it. We have the kindest, wisest, most generous being in the whole universe available to help and connect with us—whenever we need. Given this, then prayerlessness is surely not understanding our incredible situation. The more I have given time over to prayer, the more I have delighted in the knowledge that God cares about the small details of my life. Incredible.
2. Only Praying in Desperate Times
Only praying when you get in a mess is a sign of immaturity.
If Christianity is about a relationship with God, then only engaging him when you get in a mess is a sign of relational immaturity. But I, like millions of other people, have been there. And it came down to a whole host of reasons that miss out on what God is really like. Like a parent emotionally cut off by their teenager, God will respond to those rare moments of engagement with real grace. But who wants to be seen as a self-absorbed, emotionally reclusive teenager? The hope is that at some point we grow up.
3. Getting Stuck at Petition
It’s natural for toddlers to primarily ask for things. But even toddlers—in their self-focussed world of needs and wants—don’t only make petitions. There are also times of joy and wonder when they speak, “mama” or “dadda,” for no reason other than delighting in the parent-child connection.
Expand your prayer vocabulary. Your prayer experience will be richer for it.
Sure, we should ask (petition) our Father in heaven for needs and wants. But prayer shouldn’t stop there. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray (Luke 11:1-4), petition was just one element. Jesus taught them to start with praise or worship: “Hallowed be your name.” Then comes intercession: “your kingdom come, your will be done.” After these there’s petition: “give us our daily bread.” This is followed by repentance: “forgive our debts”; and prayers of protection: “deliver us from evil.”
Learn to expand your prayer vocabulary. Your prayer experience will be richer for it.
4. Not Being Honest About My Thoughts and Feelings
One danger of learning to pray is that it can become mechanistic, ticking boxes and being dutiful. But that’s not what God intended. God desires a relationship with us. Relationships require vulnerability and honesty. So, if we’re angry or frightened or simply annoyed, we should follow the pattern of the Psalms and start by speaking out our emotions to God. Even though you are actually praying by doing this, you can see this as a prelude to the main event: aligning yourself to who God is, “Our Father, who is in heaven.”
We (mistakenly) think we should get ourselves to a place of rightly seeing God before we pray.
What fascinates me with the psalms is (a) their emotional rawness; even though (b) they always get to God’s awe in some way. It’s as though, through prayer, they get their minds to a place of rightly seeing God. The modern mistake is that we think we should get ourselves to a place of rightly seeing God before we pray. We think we need to prepare to pray. But the psalmists prepared themselves by praying.
5. Praying to People Not God
Once I’d got into the rhythm of praying in small groups at our weekly Christian Union prayer meeting, I learnt a very bad practice. My dad refers to this as the political prayer. This is when you pretend to pray to God, but your actual audience is those you are praying with.
My dad refers to this as the political prayer.
It goes something like this: you know two people are bickering and not resolving their issues through repentance and forgiveness. So, you pray. “Dear Lord, thank you that you have granted us the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation. Help us to practice this regularly and make the first move, even when we don’t feel like the other person deserves it.” The problem here is that we aren’t praying; we’re confronting others through a passive-aggressive religious exercise that pretends to be addressed to God (Matthew 6:5).
6. Giving Up too Easily
Once I had discovered that prayer was primarily about developing relationship, I made the mistake of forgetting that it was also a means of spiritual battle. Do I petition God more than once on an issue? If he’s my Father, he’s heard me the first time, hasn’t he? But this is to ignore one of Jesus’ most memorable parables (Luke 18:2-7), which “he told…the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).
I forgot that prayer is a means of spiritual battle.
There’s something built into the fabric of the universe where our persistence in praying for the same issue is valued and acted upon. There’s a mystery associated with it. That’s why Daniel prayed for 21 days, even though his prayer was heard the very moment he uttered it (Daniel 10:12). A three-week spiritual battle ensued. While much of this will remain a mystery, it does help us to know our job is to pray and that it may take some time before we receive an answer. Jesus said one of the surest expressions of faith is perseverance in prayer (Luke 18:8).
7. Forgetting the Incredible Position We Pray From
One Christian statement that makes me cringe is “we’re all just sinners.” That’s good to remember. It reminds us of our need for the gospel. However the statement misrepresents the gospel’s transforming power. We were sinners. But now we are saints (Acts 9:13, 32, 26:10; Philippians 4:21; Romans 16:2). That identity must determine the place we pray from.
We were sinners. But now we are saints.
If we latch onto our former identity, as sinners, we’ll find it difficult to pray boldly and with confidence, because we’ll be overly self-conscious of our unworthiness before God. But if we know we have been forgiven, that we’ve had Jesus’ righteousness placed on us, then we can pray confidently, as sons and daughters of God. My own children do not hold back from engaging me and asking me for things—or just telling me that they love me. This is the position the gospel has gifted us to pray from.
8. My Heart Wasn’t in It
This is something that no one thinks they are guilty of, but we are all at some point. How, may you ask? Have you ever been asked to pray for something that your heart isn’t in or that you think is unwise? What commonly happens is that we say we will pray but then don’t; or if we do, we might pray with unbelief (James 1:5-8). Praying with unbelief is going through the motions of prayer without our heart and faith being in it.
Praying with unbelief is merely going through the motions.
You might find yourself using phrases that hedge your prayers. “Father, if it is your will that…” It’s far better to work through an issue and get to a place where you can pray confidently. You might still pray “if it is your will,” because it’s difficult to precisely discern God’s will in the issue. But now the phrase is used in faith, rather than as a get-out clause.
9. Not Recruiting Others to Pray
While we do need to learn to pray privately, there is great advantage to praying with others. We should do both. At our church, we pray together before our Sunday service. But we also have people who volunteer in smaller settings to pray for the congregation. Leaders’ meetings should be immersed in vibrant prayer, because this demonstrates our belief that the church is God’s; and that we depend fully on him.
We can achieve much praying alone, but we can do more praying in teams.
Only it’s not just in church settings that there’s benefit in praying together. Husbands and wives, parents and children, believing friends should be quick to convert a discussion into prayer. As a pastor, I have a small group of discrete, dedicated people who I can call on to pray for situations as they arise. We can achieve much if we pray by ourselves, but we can do so much more if we learn to pray in teams.
10. Not Looking for Outcomes
I am developing a habit of following up with people who ask me to pray for them. By doing so, I encourage others, reminding them I’m praying for them, and I can see whether I need to continue praying. But do you know what really motivates prayer? Answered prayer. When I see God working through our prayers, I’m moved to greater prayerfulness. Checking in with others is encouraging all around while also moving us to pray more.
Do you know what really motivates prayer? Answered prayer.
In a previous church, I had a member with a heart for barren couples. He would pray every day for those couples. Over a decade, he had built up a track record of seeing the miraculous happen, as previously barren couples eventually conceived. Sometimes, he’d pray for months, even years. To keep momentum in his prayers, he’d periodically reach out to see if there was progress. That dedication was commendable. But I’m sure it wasn’t easy. Both his dedication and the victories he saw taught me much in how to persist in prayer.
