One of the ways to grow in your prayer life is learning from other practices of prayer. Regardless of the practice of prayer you choose, a good place to start is by asking the Lord to birth inside of you a desire to spend time with Him. The purpose of spending time alone with God is to develop intimacy with Him, secure our orders for the day, and to come alongside the things that are the closest to His heart.

Time not scheduled to be alone with God in prayer or any other discipline will be filled with other things in life. We must make time to pray, even schedule it on our calendars like every other important meeting in our life. Spending regular time in prayer will radically deepen our personal lives as disciples, transform our priorities, renew our commitment to service, and increase our awareness of how involved God really is in our lives.

There is considerable variety in prayer and nearly as many different ways to pray as there are people to pray. Some people  write out their prayers; others prefer more spontaneous praying. Some people pray silently; others pray loud. Some people like praying alone; others like praying in groups like their cells. While it’s true that most new prayer disciplines feel uncomfortable at first, you do grow into them if you stay with them, and often the fruit results in a new and fresh encounter with God.

Because different prayer formats are helpful to different people, refusing to try new ways to pray may mean that you never discover a format that enhances your relationship with God. Visit www.discipleshiptools.org and look at the Disciplines of Prayer for new ways to grow in your prayer life.

J.R. Henderson
Pastor of Spiritual Formation
Isaiah 56:7