Fresher's Prayer Week To book a slot Click here

Prayer

Making the time and making the space
We can often feel we want to pray more but the busyness of life crowds in and we don’t seem to have the time. Jesus had the same challenge, he was often surrounded by crowds of people pressing in all around him. So he “dismissed the crowd” and went up onto a mountainside to pray (Matthew 14:22). So we too have to ‘dismiss the crowd’ and consciously make time to pray. It’s not a ‘holiness’ contest. We don’t have to pray for hours, unless we want to of course. The point of prayerweek is that we pray more than we would normally. In fact, if you don’t usually pray much, how about just five minutes a day?

How to Pray - There is no one right way to pray. We can:
    •       sit and chat
    •       kneel, bow down, and worship him in reverent awe
    •       write down prayers
    •       light a candle as we pray to symbolise our hope for a situation
    •       walk around, calling our loudly the cries of our heart!
    •       The possibilities are endless. So be creative and try experimenting this prayerweek.

What to Pray - Here are few ideas:
    •       tell God what your hopes and fears are for 2008, give the year to him, and ask for new insight into his plans for your life
    •       write down your plans for the year and pray for each one while being open to God influencing your thoughts about them
    •       read the words of Jesus in one of the gospels and pray that specific things he said will become more real in your own life
    •       read a Psalm and worship God by meditating on the words that describe how great he is
   
Fasting The Bible often refers to Jesus fasting and instructing his disciples to do the same. Going without food, or something else, for a while can help us focus on God. It makes us realise how serious we are about praying and can ‘make more room’ for him in our life. It can be part of ‘dismissing the crowd’ of distractions that tend to take over our lives.
Whether we’re skipping one meal and praying instead, or reducing our eating for the whole week, fasting can signify that seeking more of God is far more important to us than the comforts of contemporary eating habits.
But we can fast more than just food. Things that sometimes distract us from God can include TV, music, magazines, internet and anything else that takes our time and attention. So cutting down on these and praying instead could be really helpful during prayerweek.

Biblical meditation God’s words to us in the Bible can have a particularly powerful effect when we take time to meditate on them. This can be an important part of our prayer relationship with God. So as well as reading a big chunk, take a few verses and read just a few words at a time. Stop after each few words. What is this saying? What does it tell me about God? What are the implications for my life? How can I apply it in the next few days?
In Joshua 1:8 God says “meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it”

Waiting on God In Psalm 5 King David says”...to you I pray... I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation”. The phrase ‘waiting on God’ can refer to spending some time in silence when we’re praying. How easy we find this may depend on our personalities but in our busy, noisy world being silent with God can be a profound experience that brings us renewed peace and closeness to God and greater sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

Worship Worship is a way of praying. So playing a worship music CD when they want to pray can help us focus on God. We could also read a Psalm of praise like Psalm 100 or 103, perhaps out loud. Or even write our own Psalm of praise and worship.

‘Hearing’ from God Prayer can be a two-way thing. God wants to ‘speak’ to us, and he can do it in many different ways.  So why not keep a notebook handy during prayerweek, and use it as a prayer diary. Jot down:

    •       your thoughts and feelings when you are praying
    •       any Bible verses that you have found particularly meaningful
    •       people and situations you have found yourself praying for repeatedly or very strongly and what sort of thing you prayed for them
    •       any images or pictures that come to mind and what God might be saying through them