Prayer

The Discipline of Prayer

Pastor Richard Hovey

In God’s name, I beseech you, let prayer nourish your soul as your meals nourish your body. Let your fixed seasons of prayer keep you in God’s presence through the day, and may His presence frequently remembered be an ever fresh spring of prayer. Such a loving recollection of God renews a man’s whole being . . . and causes him to possess his soul in patience, or rather gives it up to the possession of God.

François Fénelon

Defining Prayer

If you are to have a future, it will be a future together with others. . . Therefore, there can be no talk of prayer so long as praying is thought of as an activity which excludes our neighbor.

Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands

Prayer unites the soul to God

Julian of Norwich

In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to will the things He wills. Progressively we are taught to see things from His point of view.

Richard Foster

Practicing the Discipline of Prayer

  • Set aside a regular time each day when your only purpose is to set your thoughts on God.

  • Remember, while setting aside a time each day to pray, that prayer can and should happen throughout your day; so lift prays up to the Lord as you go through your tasks of each day.

  • Keep a prayer journal, writing out prayers to God.

  • While praying, take time to listen to what God may be saying to you (practice silence or listening in prayer).

  • There are many ways to pray and many things to pray for (intercession, petition, thanksgiving, praise, lament, and the list could go on) so when in prayer, try to include a variety of purposes in prayer (remembering as well to listen as noted above).

  • Pray with others. We often pray for others, but to prayer with others is also important.

  • Pray the Scriptures! There are some great prayers in Scripture which would do us well to pray on a regular basis.

  • Always remember, prayer is a conversation with God; it is an opening up of your life to God but also a means of God opening to you.

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