Prayer Maps Here are some basic prayer plans for people at all phases of their walk with Christ. Please do not feel obligated to follow all of these exactly as they are written. Feel free to simplify, modify, combine things to fit your own likings. Remember you need to decide when, where, and how you are going to pray and stick with it! God wants to speak with you, because he delights in those who are in Christ, his children. Below you will find an evaluation1 of where you are at spiritually and a specific prayer plan for how you can begin to grow. 1 The evaluation analogy used here, along with the questions are taken from the following resource: Keller, Timothy, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York City: Dutton, 2014), 258 259.
Imagine that your soul is a boat, a boat with both oars and a sail. Are you sailing, rowing, drifting, or drowning? Sailing Are you sailing? This means you are living the Christian life with the wind at your back. God is real to your heart. You often feel his love. You see prayers being answered. When studying the Bible, you regularly see remarkable things and you sense him speaking to you. You sense people around you being influenced by the Spirit through you. You should start pushing yourself to pray 2 3 times a day. Morning (30 40 mins) 1. Evocation: read and pray a Psalm (Psalm 95 recommended), ask for the Spirit s help. 2. Read 2 Old Testament/ 2 New Testament chapters 3. Choose favorite verses and do the following meditation a. What do these verses teach me about God that he can be praised and enjoyed for? b. What do these verses reveal in me in terms of my own sin, selfishness, and heart? c. What do I need to pray for in light of what this teaches about God and my heart? 4. Word Prayer: pray your meditations to God. 5. Free prayer: Adoration, Confession, Supplication 6. Contemplation: dwell on the sweetest thoughts of Christ that you discovered. Afternoon (5 10 mins) 1. Read and pray a Psalm (adoration, confession, supplication). 2. Paraphrase and pray the Lord s Prayer. 3. Self examination: Have you been prickly and proud or gracious and humble? Have you been cold and indifferent or warm and kind? Have you been anxious and stressed or depending on God? Have you been cowardly or truthful? 4. Free prayer for the challenges of the day and moment Evening (15 20 mins) 1. Read and pray one or two Psalms. 2. Confess and repent for sins of the day. 3. Intercessory prayer for family, friends, opponents, neighbors, people you know with cares, burdens, and afflictions, the church in general, your church in particular, the needs of your city and community, the needs of the world.
Rowing Are you rowing? Rowing means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight. God often (though not always) seems distant, and the sense of his presence is fairly rare. You don t see many of your prayers being answered. You may be struggling with doubts about God and yourself. Yet despite all this, you refuse self pity or the self righteous pride that assumes you know better than God how your life should go. You continue to read the Bible and pray regularly, you attend worship and reach out and serve people despite the inner spiritual dryness. You need to start disciplining yourself for at least one quality prayer time. 1. APPROACHING GOD: Ask him for his presence and help as you read and pray. Choose from one of these scriptural invocations: Psalm 16: 8; 27: 4, 9 10; 40: 16 19; 63: 1 3; 84: 5 7; 103: 1 2; 139: 7 10; Isaiah 57: 15; Matthew 11: 28 30; John 4: 23; Ephesians 1: 17 19; 3: 16 20. 2. BIBLE READING AND MEDITATION a. Study: Read a passage three or four times. Then make a list of everything it says about God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); list anything that it tells you about yourself; and finally, list any examples to be followed, commands to be obeyed (or things that need to be avoided), and promises to claim. When this is all done, choose the verse and truth that is most striking and helpful to you. Paraphrase the thought or verse in your own words. b. Meditation: Write down answers to the following questions: i. What does this text show me about God for which I should praise or thank him? ii. What does the text show me about my sin that I should confess and repent of? What false attitudes, behavior, emotions, or idols come alive in me whenever I forget this truth? iii. What does the text show me about a need that I have? What do I need to do or become in light of this? How shall I petition God for it? iv. How is Jesus Christ or the grace that I have in him crucial to helping me overcome the sin I have confessed or to answering the need I have? 3. PRAYER a. Pray each of the meditations adoration, confession, petition, and thanksgiving for Jesus and his salvation. b. Pray for your needs and pressing concerns. Take a final moment just to enjoy him and his presence.
Prayer Maps Drifting Are you drifting? Drifting means that you are experiencing all the conditions of rowing spiritual dryness and difficulties in life. But in response, instead of rowing, you are letting yourself drift. You don t feel like approaching and obeying God, so you don t pray or read. You give in to the self centeredness that naturally comes when you feel sorry for yourself, and you drift into self indulgent behaviors to comfort yourself, whether it be escape eating and sleeping, sexual practices, or whatever else. You need to simply take the first step of 1 basic prayer a day. Option 1 1. APPROACHING GOD Ask him for his presence and help as you read and pray. 2. BIBLE READING AND MEDITATION Read a Psalm, eventually working through the Psalms. 3. PRAYER Turn the Psalm into a prayer and pray it back to God. Think over your day and confess where you sinned or failed to respond as you should have. Think over your day and pray for people you met or heard about who have needs or are in difficulty. Pray for some of the more urgent and important needs on your heart. Option 2 1. APPROACHING Think of the privilege of prayer. Realize God is present. Ask him to help you pray. 2. MEDITATION Read a Scripture passage. Discern one or two truths you learn there. Choose the one that most impresses you and write it in a sentence. Now ask: How does this truth help me praise God? How does it show me a sin to confess? How does it show me something to ask God for? 3. WORD PRAYER Now turn the answers to the three questions into a prayer adoration, petition, and supplication. 4. FREE PRAYER Pray about whatever needs are on your heart. Also spend time thanking God for the ways you see him working in your life and caring for you. 5. CONTEMPLATION Take a moment to thank and admire God for what he has showed you today. End with a note of praise.
Sinking Are you sinking? Eventually your boat, your soul, will drift away from the shipping lanes, as it were and truly lose any forward motion in the Christian life. The numbness of heart can become hardness because you give in to thoughts of self pity and resentment. If some major difficulty or trouble were to come into your life, it would be possible to abandon your faith and identity as a Christian altogether. You need to take the first step of getting others around you to pray over you, as well crying out to God from the suffering Psalms. 1. APPROACHING a. Get others to pray for your own soul b. Be honest with him about your own heart and ask him to move in you 2. MEDITATION: Read one of the following Psalms or verses from the Psalms as a guide in your prayer a. Psalm 22; Psalm 42; Psalm 51; Psalm 73; or Psalm 39 b. LORD, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, God will not deliver him. (3:1) c. Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer. (4:1) d. Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing. (5:1) e. Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long? (6:2 3) f. LORD my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me. (7:1 2) g. Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (10:1) h. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? (13:1 2) 3. CRYING OUT a. Use any one of the Psalms or small verses to cry out to God for his help in changing your heart and restore to you the joy of your salvation (Psalm 51:12) 4. WAIT ON THE LORD: read Psalm 27:13 14 and simply wait for Him for a time.