Prayer Unfiltered: Am I Doing Prayer Wrong?

Have you ever felt like you might be “doing prayer wrong”?

Maybe you get distracted. Maybe your prayers don’t sound polished. Maybe you’ve wondered why God doesn’t seem to answer the way you hoped.

In this week’s episode of Prayer Unfiltered, Elizabeth and Kimberly tackle one of the most searched questions about prayer:
“Am I doing prayer wrong?”

Together, they unpack the pressure many people feel around prayer and remind us that prayer was never meant to be a performance — it’s meant to be a relationship.

In this episode, you’ll discover:
• Why prayer is more relational than ritual
• How different people connect with God in different ways
• Why God isn’t grading your prayers
• Practical ways to pray throughout your day
• The beauty of honest prayers, worship, repentance, journaling, praying Scripture, and breath prayers

If prayer has ever felt intimidating, frustrating, or confusing, we pray this conversation brings freedom and encouragement to your heart.

You don’t need perfect words to approach God.
You simply need a willing heart.

If this helped you breathe again about prayer, subscribe, share with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation. Be encouraged: God desires relationship with you more than you realize. 

Transcript

The Prayer Posture Myth

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're taught as children to put your hands together, close your eyes, and talk to Jesus. And I think that helps us when we're children to focus and be still and not be touching the kid next to us or whatever. But that does give us this impression that it's this really specific moment. That's what prayer is. It's when we're quiet, it's when we're still, it's when our head is bowed, our eyes are closed, and we're really trying hard not to think about our to-do list. And that becomes the standard. And so if your experience doesn't match that, then it's easy to start thinking something's off with me.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hey friends, I'm Kimberly. And I'm Elizabeth, and this is the Father's Business Podcast, born out of Sylvia Gunter's heart for people to know who God is and who they are in him.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

So wherever you're listening from today, we pray that you will sense his nearness and know that you are his beloved sons and daughters. We're really glad you're here with us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Hey everybody, welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We're so glad you're with us. We're continuing our series, Prayer Unfiltered, where we answer the most common questions asked about prayer. We've had a few of you ask a variation on this question. And also, Kimberly, I found out this is the most Googled question about prayer. And that question simply is, am I doing prayer wrong? Um, and I think we just need to start with this question because I think some of us are not seeing answers to our prayer. So we think, well, maybe I'm praying wrong and that's why I'm not seeing an answer. Or they're thinking that they have that same disease that I do where you get easily distracted when you're supposed to be still. I love to be in motion, and so sitting still is hard for me and I can't focus. Am I supposed to use better words? Like I think all of us have these questions and doubts that kind of pop up in our mind when we think about praying and thinking that we're doing it wrong. And so I think there's just this quiet pressure or doubt that we kind of carry on the inside. Maybe we don't even vocalize it, but it's like, am I missing something? Am I doing something wrong when it comes to prayer?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

For those of us who have grown up in the church, that's probably a picture that we were given early on of what prayer was supposed to look like, because we're taught as children to put your hands together, close your eyes, and talk to Jesus. And I think that helps us when we're children to kind of focus and be still and not be touching the kid next to us or whatever, right? But that does give us this impression that it's this really specific moment. That's what prayer is. It's when we're quiet, it's when we're still, it's when our head is bowed, our eyes are closed, and we're really trying hard not to think about our to-do list, which as you just said, doesn't go very well. And that becomes the standard. And so if your experience doesn't match that, then it's easy to start thinking something's off with me.

Prayer Is Relationship Not Performance

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah. And I mean, we are trying to talk to God. I mean, you know, we are talking to a a other than a non-created person. We're talking to someone who created us who holds the whole universe in the hands. And so it can also kind of feel like, you know, in the movie The Wizard of Oz, when they go in front of the the big wizard and they're all trembling and scared to be coming to the wizard and asking for something from him. So I think there's a lot of reasons why we may feel like we're doing it wrong. But narrowing prayer down to what you just described, which is I have to be still, I have to be quiet, I have to have my eyes closed, these types of rules that we learn in ritual in church really diminishes what prayer really is. We've talked about this a little bit in another podcast in this series, but prayer is a relationship. It is about responding to God. It's about having a relationship with God. It's not just about getting the right posture, getting the right formula, getting the right things in place so that you can get the answer that you're looking for in prayer. I think the only time I really ask this question is not am I getting prayer wrong when things are going okay? A little variation on it of, am I not praying the right thing? And what that really honestly gets down to, Kimberly, is I'm not seeing the result that I want. So therefore, is there another set of words I can kind of blend together to get God to do what I want him to do? I'm not seeing movement. I'm not seeing him step in in the way that I want him to. And somehow I think if I just get it right and pray the right thing, then I'm gonna see something happen.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, and that that's interesting thought because in the day-to-day world, I know you and I have talked about this. We we like for things to be done right, we like for things to be done well. So I think in the normal everyday world, I'm I'm honestly asking that question a lot. Am I getting this right? Am I doing this the right way? But when you phrase it like you just phrased it regarding prayer, that takes me back to a couple of weeks ago when we said prayer is not about controlling God or manipulating God, right? It's about the relationship. When we pray that way, it puts the focus on us rather than on God doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Right. Yeah. And I think also there's a lot of big words that surround prayer, especially if you grew up in the church. You might be a little more familiar with what all this means, but I think about people who come to Christ later in life and they're jumping into church culture, and we're talking about supplication and intercession and repentance and worship and warfare and declarations and thanksgiving and like there's all these big words that almost kind of make it feel more mysterious or formulaic or kind of hands-off versus relational. And I think that's the hurdle we all need to get. I mean, they're real words, they're in the Bible, it's theology, they matter, and we don't in any way want to just get the impression across to anyone that God is just like any other person, but at the same time, he is a relational God. He created Adam and Eve to have relationship with him. He did not need humans. He and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they're in relationship already, right? So he is a relational God. And so I think it might help us to think about prayer more about relationships rather than formulas.

When Prayer Feels Like Insider Rules

SPEAKER_00 6:07

If you grew up in the church and you heard those words a lot, I think what it does is it starts to make you start asking the questions like, what kind of prayer am I supposed to be doing right now? Or did I repent enough? Did I worship first? Did I ask correctly in the right order? Did I declare the right thing? And suddenly things start to feel like a spiritual checklist rather than a connection with God. And I think on the other hand, what it does is it causes people to feel intimidated. If you don't know all the right words or you don't know the categories, you can feel like prayer is for people who are more mature, more spiritual, or more disciplined than you are. And when I was in seminary for one of my classes, one of our assignments was to go into two different churches or worship atmospheres that we would not normally go into. And I found it disorienting and encouraging all at the same time, right? Like it it broadened my view a little bit of Christianity or of religion, but it also intimidated me because I didn't know the lingo. I didn't know the words, what the words meant that they were using. I did not grow up in a Catholic church. And so sometimes when I, if I've ever gone to a Catholic church, I don't know the prayers they're going to pray. And it's not just, not just the Catholic church, but even I've gone into a Lutheran church or I've gone into a Methodist church, I've gone into, you go into a Baptist church, you go into a Presbyterian church, you go into a high church, which is like a formal liturgical Anglican type church. Some of the other denominations I mentioned are are high church also, versus going into a very the African American culture churches look very different from their faith perspective. And so they're all beautiful in their own way in so many ways, and yet they do things differently. And so you can feel intimidated by not knowing what to do because you're an outsider or a stranger. And I think we have to remember that these words, these prayers, are really not supposed to be that complicated. They're really just supposed to help us relate and connect to our father.

Seasons And Distraction In Prayer

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Kimberly, as you're talking about churches, I'm also thinking about football because you know, you and I, we love a good college football game. And I remember you and I were at a game together, my Auburn Tigers and your Clemson Tigers were playing each other. It was at Auburn, so I knew exactly what was going to happen. And when they start playing that song, this is what we do, and this is what we cheer, and whatever. And and I started looking at you, and I was like, huh, Kim Kimberly doesn't know what to do here. And I and then all of a sudden the Clemson people said one word to each other. I still didn't remember what it was. And all of a sudden, you and everyone who was cheering for Clemson start doing this whole spell out cheer thing that I've never heard before. And I'm like, how do you all know to do that? It's I mean, a comical example of what you're talking about. We we are comfortable with what we're at in. And I remember being at that football game and watching that and kind of feeling out of place with your Clemson fans and everything you were doing, and then you were kind of feeling out of place with my Auburn fans and everything we were doing. And I was like, this is what it feels like when you go to a different denomination because everyone else seems to know the rules and when to stand up and when to sit down and when to cheer and when to say whatever, and and you don't. And so all of that, I think, especially for people who come to know Christ later in faith or did not grow up in a church culture, how much more so do they feel that when they visit our churches? And they're trying to kind of play catch up with, okay, do we sit down? Okay, we're sit we're standing now. Okay, now now the pastor just said something, and everyone in the room just knew the phrase to say bat. I had no idea we were supposed to say that. So I think there's a lot of reason why, am I doing prayer wrong might be the number one thing searched on Google when it comes to prayer, because some of it is personal. I'm not seeing the result that I want. And some of it is being around Christian culture and like you said, some ways feeling intimidated because there are people around here who seem to know how to do this better than I do. But the truth is, God's not up in heaven with a clipboard grading our prayers. And he's not up there going, well, if you had just prayed it correctly, then I would hear your heart and answer. Because we talked a lot about that when we talked about silent prayer versus praying out loud, about how God hears our heart, he knows our motivations, he knows the groans when we don't know what to pray. So I think we need to think of it a little bit more like a relationship. And Kimberly, you and I have known each other for 25 plus years. I don't know how that's possible since we're so young, but um we've known each other for 25 years, and there have been seasons. There were seasons when we were roommates, and then there were seasons where I lived in another country, like now where we're both in the United States, but in different places. And so we don't just have one way of communicating with each other. And even in those seasons where we were roommates, I was very much involved in the day-to-day life. We were talking a lot about very practical things. Are you gonna be home for dinner? Yeah, I'll get something started. Okay, you get something started. Hey, or what what are we doing here? When are you gonna be home? Those types of practical questions. You and I don't need to ask each other that question now, because as much as I would love for you to cook me dinner, you're not going to cook me dinner in Virginia and I eat it in Alabama. So what we talk about and how we talk about it changes because of the season we're in. And I think we need to start also comparing prayer to that type of relationship with God, because we are in different seasons and different things are going on at different He doesn't change, he is the same, but how we approach him, what we're going through, what the circumstances are are different. And when that happens, different ways of communicating with him are going to come up. Not saying that one is right or wrong in that moment, just saying relationally, I if I talk to you the exact same way all the time about the same thing, I think you'd find our relationship rather boring, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, yeah. And I think even though our relationship is the same as far as our deep connected friendship, within that relationship, the conversations can't look the same because, like you said, we'd get bored and we would grow tired and weary and be like, okay, same old, same old. When are we when are we done with this? But it's also like there are times where things are light and they're fun. And sometimes we're laughing about the most random thing. These days it's memes and all that kind of stuff on, you know, reels and stuff. In the past, it was memories, it was places we've been and things we'd done together. It's still that kind of stuff. But like it's it's silly things at times. And often I don't think we think about prayer that way. Prayer doesn't have to be intense and heavy all the time. Sure. A relationship can't be intense and heavy all the time, or it doesn't last really well. So sometimes it can look like just sharing your day with God, talking to him in the car. That's one of my favorite things to do is to talk to God in the car. And so noticing something that's beautiful and just saying, Father, thank you for that, letting him be a part of those ordinary moments like like you and I would, or you you would with a friend.

Lament That Tells The Truth

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah. And I mean, I think God's got a great sense of humor. I mean, obviously he created everything, so he created humor. But I find so many times during the day that I could just tell God something I thought was funny, or something happens, and I just kind of laugh and I'm like, that is so like God that that just happened. And so it's choosing to have that type of light and fun relationship with him at times. And some people would say, well, that's not prayer. It is you're relating, you're communicating. Because even now, as you just said, Kimberly, we send memes back and forth to each other. There's there's no interaction between us. I send you one, you may see it 12 hours later, but it's communicating something to you that, you know, I saw this, I thought you'd like it, or oh, this is so you, or oh, this is so me. There are multiple ways that we're communicating with each other. But then, Kimberly, there's also times when time is hard and one of us is not doing okay, and we need to be able to call the other one and and say, Hey, I'm really going through it. And I I think of that as, you know, the times that we see lament in the Bible. And that's another big religious term that people sometimes use. But it's it's when you come to God and you're not trying to say the right thing. You're just coming to him with all of your heart, with all of the raw feelings that you're having. And if you take time to read through the Psalms, there's a lot of psalms of lament in there. And that prayer is as legit, if not more so, than the one that feels structured and how which would be approved of in your local church. Sometimes just coming to God with the raw emotion of who you are is the most beautiful prayer you can pray. It's just coming to him and saying, God, this is how I feel right now. Because I think sometimes we feel like we have to kind of get it cleaned up and present to him the correct theology when he knows your heart, as we've talked about in previous podcasts, and I think he is honored that we're willing to come to him with our raw emotions and just share our lament. Those are the times that I just call you on the phone and sometimes can't get the words out. And you just sit there with me. And I think we need to begin to picture prayer as the same thing. When we come with our our broken hearts to him and just pour out to him and say, God, this is how I really feel.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Elizabeth, you mentioned the Psalms as a place where we see a lot of lament, specifically in the Psalm 13, verses 1 and 2. It says, How long will you forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? That's lament, that's confusion, that's grief, that's pain. The psalmist is bringing that to God through prayer in his relationship through his conversation. And then I also think of Psalm 62, 8, trust in him at all times, people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. And that is a lament or an honest confession. It's not just about your unbelief, but it's about the pain and the question of the reminder of I'm feeling dark. It's when the Israelites were were in the darkness and they were like, Where is God in the desert? Where is he in the darkness? And they had to trust God is our refuge. And you're sad and you're not okay, you're hurt, and you want God to meet you there. Those were just two examples in Psalms that I was thinking of of where we see that cry out of an honest prayer, God come and meet me here. So and that's that's what we do with each other. Like, how many times do you call a friend, phone a friend, and say, I can't do this anymore? And the same thing is God is there also willing to have that conversation and be in relationship with us during those times.

Repentance Without Shame

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah. And I I think sometimes we might feel like we're bothering God in some way, but he is always willing and able to be there. You know, I think another part of prayer or another type of prayer that people sometimes get a little confused about or don't know that they're doing it right. Am I doing it wrong? Is when it comes to repentance. And again, I think sometimes we're taught that you really, really have to be sorry for it. You know, Jesus Jesus paid far too high a price for you to take your sin lightly. And I agree with that statement. He he is a holy God who gave his only son for us to take advantage of his grace. But I also don't think we need to think of repentance as thing that is shame-filled. Think about it again, Kimberly, going back to being friends for 25 years, we're gonna butthead sometimes. And I'm gonna say something that hurts you, you're gonna say something that hurts me. And in those moments, because we love each other, we want to repair. We don't want to live with conflict. I don't want in any way to feel that something I said or did hurt your heart. And I think when you begin to kind of reframe repentance in that, not taking away from the holiness of God, but repentance is me coming back to Jesus and saying, I I'm totally missed your heart in this. I am, I made choices that don't please you. I uh I I did miss the mark. I missed your holy standard here. And I need you to forgive me so that we can feel that connection, so that we can be in right relationship with that one another. I think that helps take the scary religious word and turn it into relational conflict. Because if you are in a relationship with someone, I'm very suspicious. Maybe there's someone out there that is true. But anyone who tells me we never fight, I'm like, then someone's not being honest because there's no way that two humans live in relationship with each other and don't butt heads sometimes. It's gonna happen because we are all fallen creatures in a fallen world. So God obviously is perfect. It's not him, it's us, but we get to come to him. And the other beautiful thing about it is we get to come and keep on coming. And I can screw up the same way more than once and do. And my heart can be broken, and I get to come back to him and I get to say, God, I blew it again, and I'm so sorry. And I I do want to be different. I do want to be changed, but I'm really struggling in this particular area, and allow us to have that resolution to the conflict through repentance prayer. And I think in some ways the relationship just gets deeper as I realize that he does still accept me and he still loves me, regardless of the choice that I made as I come back to him in repentance. I think about the prodigal son as he returned to his father and what a beautiful picture that is of repentance. As we will come and say, I'm not even worthy to be your child anymore. Make me a servant. And God's like, absolutely not. Here's the ring, here's the robe, kill the calf, we're gonna have a party. My son has returned home. And that is what is waiting for us on the other side of repentance. So there's a few scriptures that come to my mind, Kimberly, when I think about repentance. Psalm uh 51.10, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. And then in 1 John 1.9, a very familiar one, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And I love the promise of 1 John that if we'll just come, just like we would in a relationship, and I'd be like, Kimberly, I didn't even realize that I was hurting you by saying what I was saying, but I am so sorry and it breaks my heart that I hurt you. Human relationship sometimes, the other person isn't quite ready to forgive you. And you may not get a gracious response when you do that. But what I want you to hear in these verses is that he's faithful and he's just and he will forgive you as you come to him, and he will clean your heart and he will renew your spirit, and he will give you the connection and and the forgiveness that you're looking for. And so in that way, it makes it even better than a relationship of 25 years because he always has the right response in those moments instead of trying to make you pay or make you really feel how much the other person hurt you. Because I've had those situations, I'm sure you have too, Kimberly, where you come trying to make peace with someone and they're not quite ready to make peace with you.

Disappointment And The Forgive God Question

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Mm-hmm. Conflict resolutionists. I wouldn't have a job as a mediator if we didn't have conflict in our relationship. And one of the things that I often say is that in most relationships, you have a runner and you have a chaser. And so the person running is the person who's not ready to deal with it and probably needs some time. And the person chasing is the person who's not gonna be okay until they get it resolved quickly. And we have to learn those can you can look at psychology and say those go to your attachment theory and that kind of stuff. But what it boils down to is we have to learn that some people need time and we're still gonna be okay if we are not the ones who need the time. And if we need the time, we need the time. And there's there's tension in that. And what I love about God is that he always has time for us. And when we are ready to repent, he's there for us. Now, Elizabeth, one thing we haven't talked about is are there times where we ever need to forgive God?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yeah, okay. Thanks for the two questions, Kimberly. Feels like every week you throw those at me. One time I'm gonna hit it back over the net to you. Do we need to forgive God? There's two answers to that question. As there are to most things, theologically, no. God does not need to ask our forgiveness for anything, okay? He is God and we are not. But there are times when I am disappointed with how God has moved or has not moved. And much like when you have other types of grief, I know there's times in life where people have had to forgive people for dying on them and leaving them, you know, and you're like, well, that doesn't make sense. They didn't choose to leave me. They had a heart attack and died. And it's like, yeah, but my heart feels like that needs to be made right. In the same way, I think there's times where I need to be able to express to God that I feel like you should say sorry to me because you didn't move in the way I wanted you to. But that then goes back to what that verse in Psalm 51 was talking about, about renewing a right spirit within me. Repentance is more about getting me back in alignment with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit than it is about anything really to do with God. God's hands are not tied because I haven't asked for repentance. He's he's still God. He can still do whatever God wants to do. He's not waiting on Kimberly and Elizabeth to get right with God before he can move forward. That is where it's gonna be different than a human relationship, but I do think there's times where I have to work through the process of feeling like God needs to repent and say sorry to me because he moved in a way that I felt was hurtful to me or or disappointed me in some way.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Does that make sense? We talked about his sovereignty and his providence and his provision several months ago. And I think in all of that, there's there's disappointment with God. And so there are times where I actually had someone offer me the thought one time of, have you forgiven God? And I thought, that seems like a weird concept to forgive God. But what they were trying to encourage me to do was to look deeper into my heart at maybe I'm treating my relationship with God differently because I'm holding something against him that I'm not releasing. Like I'm disappointed with something he's done. Like you said, you you lose a loved one, you there's accidents, there's prayers he doesn't answer. And in those times, we're disappointed. And that can cause us to distance ourselves from God. I was asking that question because I'm talking about in the human relationship.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

We have to reconcile. And you have a runner and you have a chaser and you have people that act differently in the way they approach that. And so I think the encouragement, I think, you know, what you said makes makes perfect sense. And I think theologically, I don't believe that God needs to repent to us. I think I need to hold that very sacredly, right? And yet, if we're talking about prayer being a relationship, our relationship with God can be different if we're not in tune with how we're feeling towards him when we've been disappointed. Right? For sure. Sorry for asking you the tough question again, but I think it's I think it's a real question that people ask. I've asked it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

So I'm getting used to it. Every week you're gonna throw some question at me that's like, okay, let's go the deep end of the pool.

Worship And Asking Made Simple

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Yep. Challenge accepted. You know, Elizabeth, another aspect of our friendship that I think can correlate to prayer in some ways is there are times in our friendship where we are cheering each other on. You will often say to me, I see this in you, go do that. And I'll say in you, I believe in you. You got you got it, you can do it, you know, and this is who you are. I think that's one thing I appreciate about us is that we are quick to remind each other, because I think we know we need it, is uh remind each other of who they are. And I think that's in some ways you can think of that as I'm adoring you, you know, like I'm not worshiping you. That's what we do with God. We worship him, but I'm believing in you and I'm turning my attention towards you, and I'm saying, Elizabeth, you got it. I see you, I believe in you. And that's in essence, that's what worship in another sense is. It's when we are attuning our hearts and our attention towards God, and we're saying, God, this is who you are. You're faithful, you're good, you're holy, you're kind, you're worthy. And that's like in our friendship, I'm like, Elizabeth, you've got this. You are strong, you are capable, you're gonna do great at this. Like you have been called to do this, and you're a daughter of the king and he's equipped you for this. You've got it, you know, encouraging you to do something that's just hard in the day-to-day. I'm like, you got it. You go back in there and do it one more time. And in prayer, in our relationship with God, we're declaring who he is to honor him. We're not worshiping God because he forgot who he is. We're not worshiping him because he needs to be reminded. I mean, that's what happens in our human relationship, but we're worshiping him and we're turning our hearts and our attention to him because we need to remember who he is. It realigns our hearts with the truth of God's nature. Psalm 95, verses 1 and 2 says, Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation, let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. That is a worship prayer. It is a conversation with God, worshiping him. Acts 16, at midnight, we see that Paul and Silas prayed and they sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them. Worship is also declaring to others, with others, who God is. We've talked some in this podcast before about how the community praying together really matters. It's not more important, but it's just as important as praying individually to God. And that's what corporate worship is. It is together declaring the truth of who God is. Just like we were talking about our relationship and our daily conversations and inviting God into our fun and like we have fun together, fun conversations. Think about worship. It can be joyful, but it can also be tearful. It can be quiet, but it can also be loud. It can be spontaneous. Like again, I have this picture of me driving in my convertible one day, beautiful day, not paying attention to the speed limit, tell you right where I was when the officer pulled me over. And I literally looked at him and he said, Do you know how fast you were going? And I literally looked at him and I said, No, I was singing it as well with my soul. Did you get out of the ticket? Nope, didn't get out of the ticket. He said, Well, I'm glad you were enjoying yourself. And I was like, I was enjoying God and his nature and declaring who he was, and it was spontaneous. And then it was also worship through tears of, okay, God, help me figure out to pay this ticket now. But I think our friendship and our human relationship is about turning our affection and our attention toward one another at times. But when you look at prayer in our conversation with God, it's so much more worship and turning our attention to him in a way that is declaring who he is. And our hearts need that and and our community needs that to do that together. So worship is a part of prayer. It's not just some just a side thing we do at church.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, definitely. It's it's a part of our everyday life. And, you know, Kimberly, you're talking about how we sometimes are, you know, the ones pumping each other up and saying, You're awesome, you're amazing, you got this. That does benefit the one who's hearing it, but there's also delight that rises up. When I do that for you, there's delight that rises up in my heart as I do it. And it reminds me of how amazing you are, because I am taking the time to stop and tell you that. So I think that's what also what happens with us in worship as we declare who he is. There's just something that rises up in us and meets in that relationship. So the other two big words we hear often thrown around when it's talking about prayer is supplication and intercession. And those sound like very big words. I sometimes struggle to spell them because they're very long. It simply is supplication is asking. It is asking in friendship to you, Kimberly, or to to others, if you can help me. It's the same with God. I think sometimes we get wrapped up trying to get the right lingo out when sometimes the best prayer you can pray is help me, Jesus. Okay. Sometimes that's all I can get out is help me, Jesus. If I needed something, I would have no problem saying, Kimberly, this is what's going on. Could you help me? And knowing that if you can help me, you're going to. If at all possible, you will. I just think we don't need to overcomplicate it. You hear the word supplication and you think it has to have the right words, the right meaning. It's simply coming to him, not out of selfish ambition, but out of relationship and saying, Would you help me? And doing it with the belief that God is our friend. He's our father. He's a good father who wants to give good gifts to his children. And so he is there. One, he's listening. And two, he does want to answer us. Now that gets back into that bigger conversation of how and when does he answer? But he does. And intercession is just asking not for yourself, but for someone else. It's the same thing. You're asking for help with the need, but you're doing it on behalf of a friend. Kimberly, I would also have no problem in saying, hey, my husband Todd's got an issue and I really think you could help him with it. Can I come to you and say, here's what's going on with Todd? And would you, would you help him, knowing that out of relationship with me and with him, because you know him, that you would be willing to step in and help. And so again, just the whole, the whole exercise that we've been walking through here, talking about our friendship and how prayer is a relationship, is really just trying to take some of the religion off of prayer. It is a delightful relationship with God. Prayer is the way we communicate with the one who loves us the most. And it doesn't have to be quietly, by yourself, hands folded, in a certain formula, you know, because I mean, I know growing up, I'm not knocking this because it did teach us the basics of prayer. But do you remember Acts?

SPEAKER_00 31:13

S C T S, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.

Real Life Ways To Pray

SPEAKER_01 31:17

And so for a long time growing up, I thought if I skipped one, God didn't hear me. Because as a child, you're told this is how you pray. And it's a great tool to get you used to going, hey, it's not just about asking him for things. Because that's the other thing, Kimberly, if I only came to you and asked you for stuff all the time, that wouldn't be a healthy relationship either. So sometimes it's about being with the other person. So, Kimberly, we've talked a lot about how prayer is a relationship and not a performance and how we can come to him with in so many different ways. But why don't we get practical for a minute and see what prayer could look like in real life? If we're not sitting quietly in a room with our hands folded, what are some creative and practical ways that we can approach God?

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Well, I want to revisit something that we said early on, because I think that's important. I think that prayer needs to be more of a conversation. I want us to remember that it's a it's an invitation to an honest relationship with God. Like in Exodus 33, the Lord said to He spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. And so even though we don't see him face to face physically, our prayers don't have to be formal. They can be, they can be, and that's okay, but they don't have to be formal. So I want us to remember that conversational prayer happens in the ordinary moments, it happens in the car, it happens while cooking, it happens while going to work, it happens while getting dressed, getting ready. I thought it was good that we talked earlier about it, it can involve humor and laughter. I think it's important to remember that a practical way to pray is just a conversation with God. I mentioned this earlier. One of my favorite ways to talk to God is in my car when I'm just alone and I'm just talking to him just like I would talk to you if you were in my car. Now I have to watch the speed limit, but it's just a conversation. And so I think that is one practical way that we can pray.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Yeah, and I think adding on to that, even when Jesus taught us to pray, he started off our father. It's it's relational first. And then it got to hallowed be your name and your kingdom come and all of those other things that do keep in balance the holiness and the otherness of God. But when he said, When you pray, this is how I want you to pray. Talk to my dad, like I talk to my dad. So I love that that's the way the Lord's prayer starts. You know, Kimberly, another way that I like to pray sometimes is by journaling because prayer, as we talked about, doesn't have to be out loud to be heard. I have a treasure of notebooks from my mom of where she would get up every morning. And I think part of it is to keep her mind focused. She would always have a pen in her hand and she would write out her prayers in an in a notebook, written prayers, putting your questions for God in the middle of the page, which is an exercise that we teach at our rock journey conferences, just journaling out your emotions to him. God hears that. God sees that, God knows you from the inside out. And so some people that might help them focus or give them more of an emotional release to journal what they're thinking. There's also something that's happening as your hand is writing and your brain is part of that process of writing it out. And the verse that I think of is Psalm 77, 11, 12, which says, I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely I'll remember the wonders of all I will meditate also on all the works and talk of his doings. I think part of writing prayers down is I can also go back and see what I was praying about. Because sometimes if I'm just using my voice or praying silently, I may forget exactly when did I pray that? How did I pray that? What was I asking for? But being able to go back and look through my journal and see how God has answered prayers, even some I've forgotten that I pray is a really is a way to build relationship with God in a different way. Much like I'd send you a text or an email.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Another way, practically, Elizabeth, that I think people can pray is by praying scripture. Because praying scripture is actually turning God's word into prayer. That's where we are declaring with God the truth. We are agreeing with God about the truth, we're surrendering true the truth. Psalm 23 is often a prayer where we easily pray scripture, where it says, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul. And we go on and we we we're not just quoting the verse, we can pray that verse. And so it's a matter of saying, like an example of that would be saying, Father, thank you that you are my shepherd. Lead me, restore me, help me trust in your care. You know, we can personalize it, but we can also just say, I don't have the words, but I know, God, that you are my shepherd, and I shall not want. I surrender that. So there's a lot of different things that happen when we when we pray scripture. Like I said, we're agreeing with God, we're declaring, but we're also surrendering, and we're putting ourselves into the position of helping us remember that God is God and we are not. Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7 say, Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And again, the attitude there is when we pray, Lord, I bring my anxiety to you. Let your peace guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus. So if you're wondering how to pray scripture and you're not sure how to do it, we've got some excellent resources for that.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

We do. Most of what is written in prayer portions, living in this presence, one and two. I mean, honestly, all of our books, even our blessing books, are based on scripture, and you'll see all the references as you go through them. But I'm, I mean, to answer the question, am I praying wrong? If you're praying scripture, how can you?

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

That is the easiest way to know you're praying correctly. And sometimes it may be helpful to pray scripture if you're praying for a situation, like maybe a child or a husband or a wife or someone where you have some emotion about how you think they should be living their life, it's real easy for your prayers to turn into advice and trying to manipulate and control how they're going to respond to something. And the release that comes when we take a step back and we pray scripture over them, knowing that God's got them and whatever happens is going to be according to God's scripture rather than trying to control the outcome so much. So that's one of the reasons why I love praying scripture, but it's also just a certainty as you're talking about, Kimberly. And I know this is a prayer that that God will hear and answer in his own way. And I'm praying according to his will because it's his words, right? You can't go wrong there. One of my favorite ways to pray is walking. I am a wiggle worm. I'm sure if you're watching this on video, you see that I am having a very hard time sitting still. I like to be in motion. I think better in motion. I just feel more at peace when I'm in motion. And I remember one time I had a prayer partner who is the exact opposite. And we would meet to pray. And they were the type that had to get absolutely still. Like the wind could not even be blowing past them for them to be able to feel like they could hear God. And I would do it that way because I was being a good person and sitting down and praying with them, but it was not effective prayer for me because I was like, I just need to get up and walk. I need to move, or I need to be in motion on a swing in a car, like you, Kimberly. There's something about movement that allows my spirit, soul, and body to be more engaged. And I find great comfort in the fact that when God wanted to spend time with Adam and Eve in Genesis, he came to walk with them in the cool of the day. I was kind of beating myself up, but I was like, why can't you just sit still and pray? And I remember the day that God brought that verse to my mind. He's like, I walked with Adam and Eve in the day. And so sometimes it may even be a prayer assignment. I have walked around schools, I have walked around churches, I've walked around conference centers, I've walked around my own house. Sometimes God wants you to physically walk a property and while praying to him, and there is something that God is doing in that, because I mean, think about the walls of Jericho, right? He told people to walk around a city for seven days and then the walls came down. Six of those days silent and seven days in worship. And God moved. And so if you're one of those people that's like, I just can't, I have to, you know, turn off my phone and I've got to have a notepad next to me to write down my to-do list because I just can't focus when I'm still. Try walking and see what it is. And also just for the delight of it. Kimberly, you were talking a little while ago about being in a botanical gardens with me on a phone call. And I would have loved to just been walking with you that day, and we wouldn't have had to really talk about anything, just be together. Sometimes Jesus just wants to take you on a walk.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Yep. There's something powerful about being in nature. There's something powerful about movement, like you said. And so again, there's no right or wrong way to pray. As we said earlier, we don't have to sit with our hands folded. That's not the only way to pray. There is another really meaningful, practical way of praying, and that is using breath prayers, or you can call them short prayers. A biblical example of that is in Matthew, where you see Peter out on the water and he starts to sink as he cries out and he says, Lord, save me. That's a breath prayer. That's a short prayer. And you can do them while you're breathing. Breathe in and breathe out. Father, I trust you. Jesus, be near. Holy Spirit, lead me. I I read a book years ago that talked about breath prayers and it's like it stuck with me. It stuck deep within me. And I think sometimes because I deal with a lot of control issues, which leads to a lot of frustration, I am breathing a lot and I'm sighing a lot. Sometimes my friends will often say, You just sighed again, and I'm like, okay, what did you what did I just get frustrated with? And so I think that's part of where for me I've tried to turn those sighs into prayer, if I'm aware of them. They are a moment, honestly, that can tie into intercession. They are a moment of tying into worship, they're a moment of tying into supplication, of repentance. They're all of those things is what the heart of those prayers are, but they are short-breath prayers of just sometimes I'm overwhelmed, I have anxiety, I have fear, I have need. And sometimes it's just all I need to say is, Jesus help me, Jesus help me, Jesus be near, turn me to you. It is a turning of my heart towards God and recognizing that He is the one I need to be seeking. And so those are beautiful ways to pray. If you're asking the question, am I getting it wrong? Just start with those breath prayers of Lord save me, God be merciful to me. Again, it's crying out to him in a short, simple way.

Final Encouragement And Support Links

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Kim really, that's beautiful. And I think I need to do that more often because I think a lot of times I feel myself I'm not breathing. I'm holding my breath, or you feel the tension in your shoulders, you know, kind of creeping up. And just taking that moment to breathe in who he is and breathe out my my request to him. It's a is a beautiful thing. There's another type of prayer that I like to use a lot, but we're not going to cover it in this one. It's listening prayer because we've got another question coming up about how do I know if I'm really hearing God? How do I listen to God more and pray less? And so that is a whole subject that we want to dedicate some time to in a future episode in just a couple of weeks. But my last encouragement to you is sometimes praying is not. Sometimes it's just abiding. Sometimes it's not asking anything, and it's also not listening for anything. Sometimes it is thinking of whatever it is you enjoy. I love sunsets. I love the swing I have under my deck. I love my cat. And so prayer can also be just stilling myself, making an appointment, which I I'm trying to do now that the sun is setting after 5 p.m. So it's a little easier to do in the evening, but make an appointment with myself that I'm gonna take 15 minutes and I'm just gonna watch the sun set. And that's not a time for me to have great deep theological conversations with God. It's not times for me to ask him questions or to present all of my things that I need to to him. It's just about being with him and enjoying him. I mean, whatever you do, do you like to paint? Do you like to sing? Like, I don't know, what do you like to walk your dogs around the neighborhood at night? Whatever it is you do, learning to be intentional, that sometimes, as I just said, Kimberly, we talked about the botanical gardens, and I would just love to be with you in the gardens, and we wouldn't even have to talk to each other. You could be in one bench and I'll be on another, and we would just enjoy the space together. Sometimes prayer is just enjoying him with very few words spoken. So we hope this episode is giving you some new thoughts on how prayer can go from something I do for 10 minutes in the morning to start my day, or at 10 minutes at night to end my day, to deepening a relationship with a loving father who desperately wants to spend time with you. And that's that I hope is the truth that lands deep in all of our hearts. As much as however much you want to spend time with God, God wants to spend more time with you. He longs to be with you. He is just Jealous for the spirit he put in you, he says in James, and he longs to be with you. He wants to walk with you in the cool of the day, like he did with Adam and Eve. He's shown us from the beginning, I built you for relationship with me. And just as a good father would be delighted for his kids to come and spend some time with them, whether they're doing anything or not, our Heavenly Father wants to do the same with us. So we hope today has been an encouragement. And for some who may have felt intimidated and felt like, well, I don't know how to do it right. I don't know that I want to do it at all. And just that this would be an encouragement. Maybe it's a simple breath prayer that you start with to take a step towards him because he will meet you there. This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you. To donate, go to www.thefathersbusiness.com. Be sure to follow us at thefathersbiz on Instagram and Facebook.