4 Practical Tools to Help You Pray

Pray Purposefully

I’m a high school English teacher, and if you know any teachers, you know that making lesson plans is a near-constant task. We’re always thinking ahead to the next unit and building content around ideas and skills that we can continue teaching beyond one lesson. Some teachers may begin a year with no road map for where they’re headed, preferring to make it up as they go along, but few succeed with this strategy. Effective teachers have purpose and direction.

The same is true for prayer. In Luke 11:1, the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” It’s interesting that their request assumes prayer is something we need to learn how to do. They knew they needed a guide, and they knew where to go for help. Jesus answered their request by giving them the Lord’s Prayer as a model for what to say when we pray and the types of things we should pray for. But his personal habits in prayer also provided a model for the disciples—and for us.

Jesus regularly retreated to pray alone (Matt. 14:13, 23; Mark 6:46; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:18). He repeatedly removed himself from people and other distractions so he could have focused time with his heavenly Father. Jesus’s example shows us that prayer doesn’t happen accidentally. We must be purposeful in prayer.

Let’s get really practical about the “how” of prayer. Different strategies will work for different people, but I want to show you practical ways I’ve found to be helpful in making my prayer time more intentional. The point is not for you to replicate what has worked for me but to find something that works for you.

As you read, you might pick one thing to try, and then see how God uses it. Commit to it for a period of time, and then evaluate whether it’s helpful for you. If not, you might try another idea. As you work through this process, remember to be patient with the process of sanctification. Prayer is called a spiritual discipline for a reason, so don’t be discouraged if it takes time to build prayer into a habit. The end goal of the Christian life is that we become more like Christ—all the way to glory. Only he prayed perfectly, but we can trust that he will finish what he started in us and help us grow (Phil. 1:6).

1. Make a Plan

When I ran a 10K race a few years ago, I found a running plan online and saved it in my phone. Every week, I knew what mileage I needed to run if I was going to finish the race. But I also had to take practical steps to follow the plan such as carving out time to go on all those runs and making sure I stayed hydrated.

The same is true in prayer. If we want prayer to be a regular practice in our lives, we need to start by making a plan. For example, I set a time of day for prayer, plan what requests I’ll pray for, and assign a psalm to pray each day. I also plan to avoid distractions. For me, that involves planning where my phone will be when I pray and read my Bible— it needs to be nowhere near me! I pray in the morning, so I simply leave my phone on the charger until I finish reading my Bible and praying each day.

2. Use a Journal

The second part of my plan involves using a prayer journal. Some people use a prayer journal for writing out their prayers. I have good friends who have years of journals filled with written prayers. Not only does this method help you stay focused in prayer, but it also gives you a concrete record of the ways God has answered your prayers. It’s a worthwhile practice to try. I use a prayer journal in a different way. At the beginning of each month, I jot down people and situations I want to pray for. I use a journal that has categorized sections for my community, family, friends, church, heavy things (e.g., broken relationships, physical suffering, the things that keep me up at night), personal needs, and the world, but you can choose your own categories. Then I note which day of the week I’ll pray for each category. This guides my prayers each day because I know going into Monday, for example, that I will always pray for missionaries in other countries (world), our local school district (community), our elected leaders (community), and my kids’ teachers (community).

Jesus’s example shows us that prayer doesn’t happen accidentally.

3. Set a Timer

I once heard an older woman say that to become more disciplined in prayer, she began setting a timer when she prayed. She was well into her sixties when she started this, and she began with five minutes at a time. This encouraged me that I could start a new habit too, so I followed her advice and began with five minutes. Every year, I added another minute. At the time of writing this booklet, I’m at eight minutes. At first, I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to fill the time, but with a prayer journal guiding me and Scripture filling in words where I’m lacking, I find I often pray longer than the time allotted.

4. Pray Without Ceasing

We’re wise to make plans that help us pray, but we also want to be careful about holding so tightly to allotted times and practices that we forget the Bible’s exhortation to pray continuously (1 Thess. 5:17). In a moment of crisis, like when a friend shares a need or you look at a dwindling bank account, you don’t need to wait until your designated prayer time to pray. You can pray right then. Praying in the moment is also helpful if you, like so many other Christians, hear a friend’s need and confidently say, “I’ll be praying for you!” before inevitably forgetting about the request as soon as the conversation ends.

Praying spontaneously will come much more easily if your life is marked by prayer to begin with. As you pray purposefully with a plan, prayer increasingly marks your life—in scheduled and unscheduled times.

I love how Don Carson explains the need to pray purposefully in his book A Call to Spiritual Reformation:

This is the fundamental reason why set times for prayer are important: they ensure that vague desires for prayer are concretized in regular practice. . . . [T]he fact remains that unless we plan to pray we will not pray. The reason we pray so little is that we do not plan to pray. Wise planning will ensure that we devote ourselves to prayer often, even if for brief periods: it is better to pray often with brevity than rarely but at great length. But the worst option is simply not to pray—and that will be the controlling pattern unless we plan to pray. If we intend to change our habits, we must start here.¹

Jesus assumes we will pray, and the disciples assume we will need help. Perhaps Carson’s encouragement is the help you need today—start by planning to pray.

This article is adapted from Prayer by Courtney Reissig.

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