Prayer 101

Prayer is different from meditation because your goal is not to quiet the mind, but to communicate with God.

Standard Methods
A traditional way of praying that many of us are familiar with is to sit quietly, fold our hands, and bow our heads while either speaking out loud to God, or focusing the thoughts in our minds. What should you say? Jesus taught his disciples a simple prayer. For longer prayer times, here is a structure I learned from my campus minister:

Adoration (praising God for being so wonderful)
Confession (admitting to our shortcomings, mistakes, and limitations)
Thanksgiving
Supplication (asking for help)

Prayer as Communicating
Having said all that, though, I have to say that prayer is much larger than sitting down and speaking quietly, because it is the process of communicating with God. Any way you can imagine for people to communicate can also be a way to pray--dance, art, music, singing, shouting, writing, you name it. I like to go on walks when I am taking time to pray, but sometimes the best prayers are the spontaneous ones that you almost didn't mean to pray and that wake you up to something new.

While communicating with God does mean expressing yourself to God, it also means listening for God to speak to you. Sometimes this means listening carefully to your own words, and sometimes it means sitting in silence and waiting patiently for God's wisdom. I have friends who have felt God's presence very strongly in nature. Or the words of others may help you hear God speaking to you. The point is, God does speak to us and we will be blessed if we are listening carefully when it happens.

Prayer as a Way of Life
If you are hoping for prayer to change your life, it's important to make regular times to pray. But the goal of these prayers is not to take care of a particular chore and then move on to the next thing. The goal is to feed and encourage a relationship with God that will infuse your whole life with meaning, purpose, and love. The day-to-day discipline will help you stay alert to those sudden moments of beauty in the warmth of God's presence.

May you be blessed richly on your journey.