Several Short Reflections to Inspire Your Praying

In preparation for our resource emails on prayer, I spent a lot of time reading about and reflecting on prayer in Scripture, what it means to pray, and my own prayer life. Out of that time came many fragmented thoughts, several of which I’ve gathered here to inspire and encourage thought surrounding your own prayer life.

1. Help My Unbelief

Like the Father who brought his son to Jesus in Mark 9, I often feel the tension between faith and doubt:

“I believe; help my unbelief!” – Mark 9:24

We see Jesus heal others in the Bible because of their faith, but here we see Him heal the boy despite his father’s lack of faith! Where we lack faith, if we’re just willing to ask, Jesus will pick up the slack.

2. Our Desires Transformed

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Psalm 37:4

It’s clear to me that verses like this one are often misunderstood or twisted into promises that God will give us whatever we want. What we often miss is how delighting in Him changes us. When we properly delight in the Lord and spend time in His presence, He reshapes our desires to align with His will.

3. When Words Fail

There are often moments when I struggle to find the words, am stifled by grief and longing, or don’t even know what to pray. Scripture offers comfort:

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” – Romans 8:26-27

This passage is worth reading again and again because of its astonishing implications. You really should read those verses a few more times.

4. Petitioning the Lord Daily

“Give us today our daily bread” – from the Lord’s Prayer

It’s clearly important that Jesus taught His disciples to ask the Lord each day for their most basic need—food. Calvin notes in his commentaries that “the adverb today…is added to restrain our excessive desire, and to teach us, that we depend every moment on the kindness of God.” He also points out that some of those present at the time were wealthy and would likely have had food stored up in abundant supply. Yet, Jesus still teaches them to petition the Lord daily. Here’s what Calvin says:

“If Christ invites the rich and poor indiscriminately to apply to their Heavenly Father for the supply of their wants. No man will sincerely offer such a prayer as this, unless he has learned, by the example of the Apostle Paul, ‘to be full and to be hungry, to abound and to suffer need,’ (Philippians 4:12) to endure patiently his poverty or his humble condition, and not to be intoxicated by a false confidence in his abundance.”

5. God is Not Bound by Time

I remember being fascinated by God’s timelessness as a child. Once, I forgot to pray for a family friend before surgery. When I realized it was already finished, I asked my mom if I could pray afterward, since the Lord isn’t bound by time. May we always approach the Lord in prayer with this kind of childlike wonder!

6. Speaking Names

Prayer can be as simple as naming people before the Lord. I love to practice this while listening to worship music. Two of my favorite songs to sing while lifting up my loved ones to Jesus by name are, “I Know A Name” by Elevation Worship & Brandon Lake, and “I Speak Jesus” by Charity Gayle.

I close my eyes and picture faces—parents, siblings, children, friends, pastors, politicians, neighbors, church leaders. I speak aloud, alternating their names with the name of Jesus, trusting that dead things come alive in His name. As I speak their names I yearn for their lives to align with God’s will, whether that be their salvation, decisions, sanctification, emotional state, etc.

Prayer can be as small as a name, yet powerful enough to call life out of dead places.

7. Simple Prayers

Not every prayer is long. Sometimes they are just a few words:

• “Your will be done.” (I stole this one from Scripture)
• “Go, God, go!” (I stole this one from my Mom, although I think it’s her translation of the former)
• “Lord, I am willing; Lord, have your way.” (This was a consistent breath prayer of mine a few years ago when the Lord convicted me of my stubborn unwillingness to submit to His will)

Small words, but full of surrender. Short prayers help us to pray continually, throughout our days.

8. You Can’t Pray Too Much

Perhaps prayer is the most important thing for us to do, yet it seems we pray far less than we ought—even those among us who pray daily, several times a day, or even every hour. We know that God is always present with us, so think about how strange it is that we address Him so infrequently.

It’s worth noting how much of our days we spend not speaking to the most influential and powerful One in our lives. I’m utterly awestruck that the God who breathed the universe into existence—whose fullness I can never begin to comprehend—not only chooses to make Himself so easily accessible, but actually wants to be in relationship with me. Yet I spend the majority of my time not in conversation with Him.