I can remember a few times as a teenager when older friends would come and ask me to pray with/for them. And I don’t mean like at the altar after a youth service or a prompt like: “hey, go find someone and pray together…”

I mean, completely out of the blue. And one time I asked one of the girls, “Why?”

Why me? I’m just a kid compared to all these older teenagers. What could I possibly have to say to God?

And she looked at me and said: “because you know how to pray.”

And I remember thinking, “I do? This is news to me!”

I don’t know if anything I ever prayed for as a teenager (or an adult for that matter) has come to pass. But, I also don’t know what was been stopped by praying either. How God may have protected the people I cared about, or held it all together when the people I cared about grieved an unexpected devastating loss in their family.

You and I will likely never know on this side of Heaven, how praying may have impacted anyone’s life. But what I do know is that regardless of the outcome, I’ll continue to pray—even when others don’t want me to pray for them. More on that at a later time.

In the last post, I began to address some questions that you may have as you start to Pray Like You Mean It. The first question we asked was:

1. How do we approach God? If you missed it, you can read it HERE.

The question I want to try and answer today is maybe an equally challenging question:

2. How do we know what to pray for?

A) Pray in the Spirit

Generally, when I’m not sure how to pray or what to pray for, I pray in the Spirit.

Depending on where you align with scripture, I realize that we might hit a wall here but I hope that’s not the case. Let me try to explain why before you click back on the link here…

Paul has A LOT to say about praying in the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 14. Check it out sometime. But I want to start here:

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 14:2 (NIV)

Just two verses later, Paul explains why someone might benefit from praying in the Spirit:

Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves…

1 Corinthians 14:4 (NIV)

So, when I don’t know what to pray for or am not sure how to pray, I pray in the Spirit because it aligns my heart with God’s heart. It’s a direct line between my Spirit and the Spirit of God. There’s no room for human error at that point. There’s no room for me to pray something weird or selfishly to benefit myself.

If I’m not sure, and oftentimes before I’ll even start to pray out loud in English (because that’s my native language), I’ll pray in the Spirit (because that’s my Spirit’s native language). And what this does is, it builds me up.

It opens up a line of clear communication between the Lord and myself. It gives me the ability to see in the Spirit what I cannot see in the natural.

And more times than not, it enables me to know how to pray in English—what to pray for.

If you want to Pray Like You Mean it, I believe that it begins by praying in the Spirit.

If you don’t know how to pray, pray in the Spirit. If you don’t know how to handle a situation, pray in the Spirit. If you don’t know if your husband is ever coming home, pray in the Spirit. If you don’t know if your friend will get well, pray in the Spirit.

Here’s the thing. What could it hurt? Does your life get worse when you pray in the Spirit? How could it?

Okay, I’ll move on because I know this is a hot issue for a lot of people, almost as hot as whether or not women should preach—but here we are. If you’ve missed it, I am a woman, and I occasionally do the preaching. Yes, I wrote that funny on purpose, trying to lighten the mood a bit. Hope it worked.

B) Pray like Jesus

Jesus gives us some instructions for prayer in Matthew 6. He says:

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you. “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again.”

Matthew 6:5-7 (NLT)

Let’s break this down:

In just three verses, Jesus instructs us with one phrase, three different times. He says, “When you pray…”

Some of us treat prayer as an option. How many times have you said the following: “Well, maybe I should pray about that”? And this is not to condemn or judge you in any way, because I’m guilty too. But, if we want to pray like we mean it, we have to start taking prayer more seriously.

We can no longer come at it as an option. Prayer isn’t only an option. Prayer is the only way.

What if we began to pray in such a way that it was our only option? Our only source? What if when we prayed, we followed Jesus’ instruction and got alone in a secret place, and laid our hearts out bare?

Jesus goes on to instruct us how to pray, what to ask for:

Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13 (NLT)

Further on in the same chapter, Jesus says this:

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

Jesus tells us to approach God as our Father. Essentially what He says is to remember that God isn’t our genie in a lamp. He isn’t our last resort. He isn’t our footstool.

He is our Father and He is Holy. And he says that when we pray, we should focus on the important things:

So, how do you know what to pray for? Jesus is sitting in the room—it’s just you and Him. And, you’re no longer approaching Him with meekness; you’re approaching with confidence. But, what do you ask for? How do you know what to pray for?

You’ve prayed in the Spirit; you’ve got the model. But, practically, what do you pray for?

Anything.

If what you’re asking for aligns with the kingdom of God, the heart of God, then there isn’t anything that you could pray about that’s out of line.

How does what you’re praying for line up with God’s kingdom? Or, are you over-praying for your needs—even the needs that might actually look like wants on paper?

Here’s an important note: I don’t believe that we shouldn’t pray for tangible things and only focus on kingdom things, but I do believe that sometimes we can be so focused on our needs/wants that we neglect what God wants.

Praying for God’s kingdom could look like praying for:

• Reconciliation in relationships
• Redemption for the lost
• Restoration in our bodies
• Revival in our families, churches, country, world
• Renewal in our minds
• Releasing of those who are bound

We could talk more in-depth about this at a later time. But, hopefully, this helps to at least provide a starting point as we begin to align our prayer life with God’s kingdom.

Listen, don’t get hung up here. Don’t allow the enemy to deceive you into believing that your prayers haven’t mattered up to this point, or that you’ve been doing it wrong. Don’t quit before you even get started. Let me remind you that it’s not only about the words that you pray, it’s also the way you approach God that matters.

I’m going to break here to give time to process because this is a little heavy. So check back soon for the final part. But, before we go, I want to say one last thing as we close:

I believe that it’s time for the Church to start praying prayers and expecting results. It’s time for you and me to start Praying Like You Mean It. If you’re struggling with your prayer life, I want to encourage you to keep praying. I’m praying that you would begin to see how the prayers that you pray shape the world around you. May you experience a new heartbeat when you pray. May you pray with passion, conviction, and boldness. May you trust Him with the deepest parts of your life as you believe for answers that you don’t yet have. There’s hope for the world around you.

There’s hope for you today.