5 Tips to Develop A Habit of Prayer
My great-grandmother was a woman of prayer. We called her “Bitty Granny.” In English, “Bitty” means small, and Bitty Granny was very short. She loved to cook, she loved her family, and she loved Jesus. I remember she made the best cinnamon rolls in the world. She prayed every chance she got. She looked for reasons and times to pray. If her hands were busy cooking or doing chores, her heart and mind were busy praying. When she wasn’t doing those things, she sat in her chair at the dining table reading her bible and praying. This was a sacred and holy place for her.
Bitty Granny always wanted a minister in her family, so she started praying. She prayed, “O Lord, please let my children be your ministers.” They grew up, and left home to live their lives. When they didn’t become ministers and had kids of their own, my Bitty Granny prayed, “O Lord, please let my grandchildren be your ministers.” But when she saw her grandchildren grew up and were not ministers, she started praying for her great-grandchildren. “O Lord, please let one of my great-grandchildren be your minister.” Bitty Granny went to be with Jesus in 1999 and saw none of her family become a minister. But God heard Bitty Granny’s prayers. Five years after she died, God spoke to one of her great-grandchildren. God called him into ministry and sent him to seminary. In 2009, 10 years after she went to be with Jesus, that great-grandson became an Assemblies of God minister. He was the answer to her prayers.
In Luke 18:1, Jesus “told them (the disciples) a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
He also taught them in Luke 21:36,
“But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Prayer is what gives us the strength to endure all the things that are going to take place in our lives. At its simplest definition, Prayer is communication and fellowship with God. It’s about building and maintaining a relationship with Him. Sometimes we pray with our hands clasped together as we bow our heads and close our eyes. But prayer is so much more than this. I love how Pete Greig explains what prayer is to kids in his book “How to Pray: A Guide for Young Explorers.” He says, “Prayer is like hanging out with the most famous and powerful person that ever lived.” He also said, “Real prayer is a two-way conversation with the living God who loves and listens to the things we say.”
Let’s look at prayer through the lens of building a strong marriage. How many of you are married, or want to be married one day? What is the key component of a successful marriage?…Communication. We have to spend time talking with our spouses. Do you think Bethany would have married me if I only talked to her when I had a problem that I thought she could help with? Or what do you think would happen if I told Bethany all about my day, all about my problems, told her how much I love her, but never let her talk? Would that be a good relationship?… Not at all. So often we treat God this way. We only talk to Him when we have a problem like he is a cosmic vending machine. We may pray often, but we never let him speak to us because we are too busy to hear what he has to say. If I talked to Bethany like this, let me tell you, there would be problems. She wouldn’t be happy with me, and we would not grow any closer. God has infinitely more wisdom, and guidance for us than anyone else does. So why do we treat our relationship with Him like we are the only ones with anything to say? The creator of the universe wants to spend time with us. How amazing is that? But for us, it can be incredibly difficult to keep a habit of prayer. That's what we are going to talk about today.
The BIG Idea:
BIG Idea: Prayer is a vital and transformational habit that we must develop as Christians.
Morris Williams said, “Prayer brings us into the very presence of God. Prayer strengthens our faith to claim the promises of God. Prayer will bring Jesus, the One who pleads our cases, to our side when we have sinned, Prayer will bring us power when we need deliverance. Above all, prayer will keep the love flowing between God and us as we worship Him. Prayer should be as natural as breathing to the child of God.” (Williams, Morris. Prayer and Worship., Springfield, Mo, USA, 1996)
Today, we are going to look at 5 tips to help develop prayer as a habit in our lives. We are going to look at the lives of several people in the bible, and how they intentionally made prayer part of their daily habit. It’s important to mention that prayer can and should happen at any time or at any place throughout our day. God wants us to say breath prayers and sporadic prayers throughout our day. Those are good prayers to pray, and God hears those prayers. But today we are focusing on intentionally developing a habit of prayer.
Tip 1: Removed Distractions
In Luke 5:16 it says that Jesus would withdraw to desolate places and pray. Jesus was constantly finding places away from all the distractions. He did this so he could be alone to pray and worship God.
The poet John Donne wrote, “I invite God into my life when I pray, but when He is there, I am distracted by the buzzing of a fly, the rumbling of a car outside, or by the squeaking of a door.”
For me, removing distractions is a very difficult thing to do. I have Attention Deficit Disorder, and am easily distracted. 15 years ago my boss used to call me the “Seagull” because of how the tiniest of things distracted me.
For many of us removing all distractions can be difficult. Removing distractions means getting rid of things that consume our attention (temporarily). When we pray we may need to leave our phones, computers, smartwatches, and other things in another room so we can’t access them. We may have to use noise-canceling headphones, put up blinders, or go to a secluded location.
This leads us to our second tip… Find a place.
Tip 2: Find a place
I want to look at two people here, Abraham and Elijah.
Abraham moved around a lot in his life. It was his habit to build an altar in every place he went, and everywhere he needed to pray. We see this four times in the book of Genesis. The first time was to show his devotion to God (Genesis 12:7), the second was for a time of prayer (Genesis 12:8), number three was to enjoy the presence of God (Genesis 13:18), and finally it was an act of obedience to God (Genesis 22:9). It was Abraham’s practice to stand at an altar before the Lord when he prayed.
You see, typically altars are some sort of platform or table built to worship God. They are places of refuge, places to find healing and cleansing, and are places to make offerings to God. Today in Evangelical churches, we use altars as a place for taking communion and as a place to pray. Modern altars normally have the words carved into them, “Do This in Remembrance of Me.” Each altar listed in the bible was built to remember something that God had said, or done, or was going to do.
Elijah on the other hand, after defeating the prophets of Baal, an angel told him to go to Mount Horeb. 1 Kings 19:9 says, “There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him,…”
It was normal practice for Jesus to find a desolate place. He also taught his disciples to pray in secret as well. He said in Matthew 6:6 “but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
With prayer, location matters. Not only does it help to remove distractions, but it also helps create a holy focus. In Acts 2:2, when the Holy Spirit came, He filled the entire house where the disciples were, and then rested on each of them. The Holy Spirit can saturate places as well as people. When we routinely use the same place for prayer, we create a space of expectation. It allows for God and the Holy Spirit to move and speak to us. The location we choose can be our favorite chair, the dinner table, a park bench, a closet or spare room in our house, or could even an attic or basement. Wherever it may be, it needs to be free of distractions, and away from the normal routine of life. It needs to be a place where we can focus on praying to God. This prayer location, whether we build it like Abraham did, or if we find it like Elijah, it should become our sacred ‘tent of meeting.’
For me, I have two places in my house. On nice days, I sit in a chair on my front porch. On days with not-so-good weather, I sit at our dining room table. God doesn't care where we pray, as long as we are praying.
Tip 3: Stick to a Schedule
In Daniel 6:10 we read that Daniel’s habit was to pray three times per day. This was normal for the Israelites. They had three scheduled hours of prayer every day. Once in the morning at 9 am, once at midday at 12 pm, and the last time at 3 in the afternoon.
When we look at the bible, it seems that most of God’s people were morning people. Jesus woke up early in the morning, while it was still dark to pray (Mark 1:35). One of the first things King David did every morning was to pray (Psalms 5:3). Moses rose early in the morning to build an altar and pray to God (Exodus 24:4). Job offered sacrifices early in the morning (Job 1:5). We find that Samuel, King Hezekiah, Hannah, Gideon, Joshua, and the apostles all prayed early in the morning hours.
Now, I’m not saying you have to wake up before the sun rises or schedule three or more times to pray everyday. That’s not it at all. BUT, what I am saying is to schedule a time to pray. Praying when we first get up in the mornings makes it a little bit easier. It could possibly be more beneficial for the rest of the day.
Once you have a scheduled time of prayer, you have to stick to it. Acts 3:1 shows us that after the day of Pentecost, Peter and the other disciples remained faithful to a prayer schedule. Peters scheduled 2 times to pray every day. Once in the morning and once in the evening.
In Acts 10:9 it says, “The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray.” While Peter was traveling, when it was his scheduled time to pray, he found a place and prayed.”
Peter remained faithful to his prayer schedule. As we stay faithful to a scheduled time of prayer it will eventually become an automatic habit. To do this we may need to set an alarm to pray, add prayer to our daily to-do list, or find something that reminds us to pray.
There is an old saying, “Mark your calendars with pencil, but write the important things in ink.” This was something I was taught during Bible College. All of our meetings and appointments should be scheduled in our calendars with a pencil. This makes it easy to erase or move stuff. But all the truly important things, such as family events, need to be scheduled in ink so they cannot be moved. The same goes for our personal prayer time. We need to mark it in our calendars in ink so it cannot be erased or moved, and we must stick to it.
Morris Williams said, “Our prayer life must not be measured in terms of time. It must be measured by the quality of our praying.” (Williams, Morris. Prayer and Worship., Springfield, MO, USA, 1996)
Tip 4: Be Devoted
Acts 2:42 says, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayer.”
The word devoted means to be committed, dedicated, zealous, and loyal. By devoting themselves to prayer they were continually participating in these activities we just mentioned. These activities formed a practical map for all followers of Christ. This includes prayer which has always been a mark of the believer.
Being devoted to prayer shows our dependence on God, our hope for the future, and our desire for God's kingdom. Prayer is our lifeline to God. When we devote ourselves to prayer, no matter what comes our way, we will be persistent and unwilling to give up praying.
Tip 5: Keep it simple
We get this one from learning what not to do from the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Pagans in Scripture. You see they were always trying to make things more complicated than what was necessary. That's one of the reasons why Jesus said in Matthew 6:5,
“You must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.”
In verse 7 He says,
“do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”
On another occasion, Jesus told the story of a Pharisee and a Tax collector. The Pharisee spoke with confidence at the front of the temple, ticking off all the right religious checkboxes. But the despised tax collector wouldn't even look up and hid in the back muttering for God to have mercy on him. Jesus said in Luke 18:14 that the tax collector was the one who prayed correctly.
Many times, new habits fail to take hold because we make them way too complicated. There are several templates in the Bible that teach us to pray. But the key to prayer is being simple and heartfelt. Praying this way, as the Tax Collector did, helps to develop a successful habit of praying in our lives.
Today, we looked at Biblical examples of how we can develop a habit of prayer. We focused on 5 tips that help us develop a habit of prayer. Remove distractions, find a place, stick to a schedule, be devoted, and keep it simple.
For me, developing a habit of prayer has been nearly a 20-year journey. When I was 20 years old I had a ton of stuff on my plate. I was in art school for 10 or more hours per day, I worked multiple jobs and other obligations. I was a new Christian and felt like I had no extra time for prayer or reading my bible. One evening as I was walking from my dorm room to the college ministry center my pastor saw me. He walked over to me, linked his arm around my arm, and we started talking as we walked to the ministry center. That night he said something that I will never forget. “Adam,” he said. “If you are too busy to read your bible and pray, then you are busier than what God intends for you to be.” For nearly 20 years this has stuck with me, and it's one of the mantras I have in life now.
So my challenge for you today is this, “What needs to happen for you to develop a habit of prayer in your life? Here are 5 questions for us to pray and ask for God’s direction.
What distractions do I need to remove?
Where can I go to pray?
When should I pray?
Am I willing to devote myself to prayer?
How can I make prayer simpler?
