It is a wonderful privilege to be able to speak freely to God. It is one of the greatest joys of the Christian life. But all of us could get better at it. In this article, I’ll lay out some simple and practical guidelines on how to pray in private. These aren’t hard and fast rules. They’re simply guides to help you speak to our triune God and enjoy his presence.
Two Kinds of Private Prayer
Before we get started, it’s worth saying that I have two kinds of prayer in mind:
- Intentional prayer—a deliberate time of prayer for specific things you have in mind, often connected to our quiet times;
- Momentary prayer—those many unplanned prayers throughout our daily lives.
The ideal prayer life has a healthy balance of these two kinds of prayer. From a practical perspective, it makes sense to mainly focus our attention on intentional prayer. However, below I’ll walk you through some examples, applying the principles I develop to both kinds of prayer.
You Must Plan to Pray
The first step is that you will need to plan to pray. Anything intentional, after all, requires intention. Simply put, you’ll need to set aside time to pray in private. And the exact timing isn’t nearly as important as consistency. This is intentional prayer. Therefore you should aim to build it into your regular schedule.
Aim to build it into your regular schedule.
One insight I found incredibly helpful in my own prayer life was to break up my prayers into chunks across the course of the day. There is real wisdom in melding the immediacy of momentary prayers to the precision of intentional prayers. Inspired by John Calvin, Tim Keller had five prayers he’d pull out at different times of the day, spreading what I’d often aim to cover in one sitting over the course of the day.
In your planning, don’t discount praying with other believers. Of course you must have your own relationship with God and should speak to him alone as well as in community. But if God has given you the blessing of a Christian spouse, family, or friends and you have the opportunity to regularly pray together, you should consider this part of your regular, intentional prayers.
Outline Your Prayers
Most of us would benefit by having a structure to guide us as we pray. The simpler and more memorable the better. Where to find these models? It’s helpful to glean them from those around you. A good place to start is by listening to the prayers you hear in church and learning from them.
Most of us would benefit by having a structure to guide us as we pray.
Every model has its own strengths and weaknesses, but the best tend to mix both humility and boldness as we approach our triune God. Rightly recognising our sinfulness and need will help us to be humble, not presumptuous in prayer—and joy will suffuse our prayers as we realise that in Christ we are loved, accepted, and known by God as our heavenly Father, and we’ll be freed to bring our cares and concerns to him.
I’ve spoken about this elsewhere, but when I pray in private I often follow and expand on the structure of the collects—weekly prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. Another simple model I’ve found helpful is to take Keller’s summary of Martin Luther’s advice to his barber about how to meditate on scripture and converting it into four simple steps for prayer:
- Adore—begin by praising God
- Confess—acknowledge your sins and thank God for the forgiveness you have through Christ
- Ask—put your requests to God
- Commit—(my own addition) entrust your requests to God’s wisdom.
One more thing: reserve the right to abandon your plan and be led by the Spirit. If God leads you to pray for something in particular in the moment, don’t let your plan get in the way. For you can always come back to it later.
What to Do Before You Pray
Particularly when it comes to petitions, it always helps to know what you want to say. In very practical terms, a list can help. Many churches and organisations publish regular lists which you can use. But along with countless others I’ve found it helpful to maintain my own list(s). I’ve done this in different ways over the years. How you keep your list isn’t important—whether you use a notebook, scrap of paper, or an app. But your list should be readily accessible, so that you can add things to it easily. If I’m unable to add something quickly, I usually pray then and there so that I don’t forget and therefore neglect it later.
Reserve the right to abandon your plan and be led by the Spirit.
What about content? Some of the most helpful principles come from D. A. Carson, who makes groups of the different items on his list, adds a short note detailing what to pray for, and aims as much as possible to tie his requests to scripture. You might aim for groupings like this:
- Close groups—your family, your fellowship group, your church, or even your neighbourhood are good examples here;
- Time-sensitive prayers—needs, events, crises, opportunities, or projects. This part of the list changes most often, so you’ll want it to be most accessible;
- People you’re responsible for—if you’re a lecturer, your students; a pastor, your congregation; a businessman, your employees. This might also include people you’ve committed to pray for, so missionaries would usually belong to this category as well;
- Larger groups—your city, your denomination, your country, the global church are some examples.
Expect God to Work As You Pray
The Bible teaches us to pray; and it teaches us expect God to answer. You should firmly believe in the power and efficacy of prayer, because God uses the prayers of his people to accomplish his purposes.
God uses the prayers of his people to accomplish his purposes.
Sometimes, the answers to prayer are closer than we think. Sometimes, God uses us to answer our own prayers. I recently preached a sermon on Ruth and was struck that while Boaz blesses her (Ruth 2:12), in the very next chapter she asks him to be a part of how that blessing comes to pass (Ruth 3:9). In other words, God used Boaz to bring about the very blessing he’d asked God to bestow upon Ruth. So, as you pray in private, you should consider how he might use you to be a part of answering your prayers. Furthermore, prayer won’t only redirect your life as God uses you, but it will also change your heart. As we pray, we consciously draw near and depend on God. Thus by it God shapes and transforms us as a means of grace.
An Encouragement
Press on if prayer feels hard and God seems distant. If you’ve struggled to find time for your intentional prayers, it can be hard to get back into it. It can help to do a challenge of sorts where you push for a set time to pray in private each day. Press on. We often need to spend a bit of time in prayer before we warm up and are no longer going through the motions, but really speaking to God from the heart.
