Throughout my life, as with many others, my conversations with God have changed dramatically. As we become wiser, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with age, and our relationship with God begins to deepen, we realize that there are several ways to communicate with our Maker; several forms of prayer. My desire is to briefly share a little of each type of prayer in hopes to challenge you to include a little of them all in your daily life. Doing so can help you to have a more well-rounded prayer life and relationship with your Heavenly Father.
The first type I wish to cover is typically the most common and familiar, yet overly abused form. It is called Prayer of Petition. This type of prayer is genuinely the first type of prayer many of us learn, even without being taught. It is where we ask God for something. Typically we do not practice it until things go bad, get tough or we just want something really bad; then we turn to God and beg; plead; make deals! In the end when they are not answered immediately, we assume God is not listening and that prayer doesn’t really work. Then we do not pray again until we want something else and the vicious cycle continues. How would you feel if in one of your close relationship the other person continuously was asking you to so something; or for a favor never asking if there is anything they could do for you? It would get pretty old wouldn’t it? Fortunately for us, our God is a patient and loving God and with any growth on our part, we can begin to take our prayer life to another level.
The next type I would like to discuss is called Prayer of Repentance. This is when we go to God asking for forgiveness. This is definitely a step in the right direction. God wants us to be one with Him; wants us close to Him so he can fill us with His love and grace. If we stay in a state of sin without asking for forgiveness, we are closing the door to God in our lives preventing ourselves from receiving His Divine Strength and Blessing. Offering our short-comings up to our Heavenly Father, with honest and contrite hearts, we are freed of the burdens we place on ourselves through our own faults and begin to receive the forgiveness Christ earned for us.
Another form of prayer vital to us growing in relationship with God is Prayer of Adoration & Praise. This is when we acknowledge the immeasurable goodness of our Father, that through Him our lives can be all He created us to be. It is a form of surrender of one’s self and an admittance that only through relationship with Him our lives may be made whole; purposeful; joy-filled and complete. Not that God needs our praise to think more of Himself, but it pleases Him when we desire His will in our lives. Turn to Him, offer up your life, seek His will and watch things begin to change for you!
A fourth type of prayer is the Prayer of Intercession. This is when we lift our prayers up on behalf of others. It’s when we pray for our spouse; our children; our family members; friends; our churches and pastors; our communities and our country. It’s when we lift the needs of all others up to God and ask for His guidance, strength and healing in their lives. Intercessory prayer is very powerful, especially when many come together in prayer for the same cause. “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew 18:20. We have seen the healing power of prayer when we have come together as a nation during crisis, such as 9/11, the many tragic shootings, devastating storms, etc. When we come together and pray for one another, God’s peace and love settles upon us and if even for a brief moment, we are all one in Christ!
Lastly but certainly not least, there is the Prayer of Thanksgiving. This is when we acknowledge to our God the thanks He is so deserving of for all of the great things He does in and for our lives. It may for bringing us together with our soul mates; for our beautiful healthy children; for providing us with a job; shelter; transportation. Going deeper we begin to thank Him for creating us; for His love; His peace; His guidance and His will. God deserves our unceasing thanks as it is through Him all of the goodness in our life comes.
Seeking that relationship that grows passionately day by day requires us to converse with our Maker in many different ways. When we can begin to direct our prayers away from ourself and outward towards God and others, ironically we will begin to receive an unmeasurable amount of purpose and peace within our own lives. I challenge us all to begin to pray for God’s will in our lives; to pray for God to begin to bless our country again and to consume the hearts of our fellow brothers and sisters and pray that we all seek that one on one relationship with Christ we all need to live to our fullest. May God bless each and every one of you with an abundance of love, purpose and peace!
Hey Jeff,
Thank you for continuing to pour your heart into your blogs. You have been up to the Ultimate Blog Challenge. More importantly, you are up to the monumental challenges that we keep creating for ourselves here on earth. You have really put great energy into originating ways to open eyes and stir passion for change. The prayer for God’s will in our lives and truly understanding how that may generate a sense of real responsibility may be the type that encompasses everything.
Thanks Donovan. Praying for God’s will has got to be one of the most important things I have focused on in some time; was about time for me to quite being selfish; besides my ways werent working very well! 🙂 Thanks for the constant encouragement! 🙂
Hi Jeff
Great post, Thanks for sharing! I love the engery & passoion you can feel from your post! Have amamzing day!
Thanks Audrey for you kind words and affirming message. I appreciate you taking the time to read my article! Have a Blessed day!
Hi Jeff,
I agree with Audrey, clear passion coming through – glas these prayers work for you,
Cheers,
Gordon
Thanks Gordon for the comment! I enjoy reading your articles as well. Always great to sense passion in what individual’s write about! Thanks for sharing that with world!
Hello Jeff,
This was a great post. I enjoyed the structure and the content. As I read through each one I gave thought to when I begin in my life to pray different prayers. This was a very thought provoking post for me and I thank you sincerely for that.
Thanks so much for the kind words! Prayer is definitely something thrashes is personal and different for each person; my hopes are that regardless of how we communicate with our Maker that we are at last all striving for relationship! Thanks for the comment!
Hi Jeff – This is my first time on your blog. I found it interesting that you spoke about various types of prayer. I remember a formula that I picked up many years back. It was ACTS – Awareness, Contrition, Thanksgiving and Supplication. I would insert Adoration between Thanksgiving and Supplication though.
Thanks so much for the insight Corrine. Its funny that you mention ACTS. I have heard of that take on the letters bigoted but I like it. I actually attended probably most influential retreats of my life and it was called an ACTS retreat. ACTS stood for Adoration, Community, Theology and Service! Thanks so much for sharing!:)
Great post Jeff.. Your post make me think a little harder & deeper about everyday life. I need to pray more for sure… 😉
Thanks Genaro…my post make ME think more…lol…its always a pleasure to hear from you and I enjoy your thoughts on things…thanks for sharing!
This was an awesome reminder of how abundant our prayers can be. Sometimes I’m “stuck” in that I don’t know what to pray about, and this post reminds me that there is always something. Thank you so much, I’m posting this one to the wall!
Thanks Beatrice for the kind words. It is sometimes easy to get stuck in a place where we don;t see the blessings we have but if we just pasue for a moment and meditate in silence, its not long before thosse blessings come flowing in! Thanks for the response!
Please pray for a 17 year old girl from our Church who was knocked down by a car on Monday 27th September. Her name is Grace and she and her pnetras and brother attend our Church she has been a baby-sitter for my three young children.Grace has been very badly injured in the accident, and her condition is critical. She has suffered very severe head injuries and is currently in an induced coma in hospital. The Doctors gave her pnetras very little hope, but 4 days on Grace is still with us and fighting hard for her life. She has started to show some positive signs some hand movements, a cough, etc, but it is likely to be a long haul, so please pray for a miracle.Please pray for calm and God’s peace for her pnetras and family. Her mother witnessed the accident so please pray that she remains strong.Please also pray for the doctors, nurses and other medical staff involved in Grace’s care and treatment.Many people are already praying for Grace her family and friends, our Church, other Churches locally and elsewhere, prayers are being posted on social networking sites such as Facebook, even strangers are praying when they hear about her.Please spread the word about Grace’s plight and ask as many people as possible to pray for Grace and her family. Please ask God for a miracle and to help Grace recover fully from the awful injuries she has received.
Jeff, thanks for this post. I guess I try to remember that God wants us to pray constantly, and it’s nice to see the different facets of prayer laid out in such an easy-to-understand way.
Thanks for the reply Amy. You are so right in that God wishes to to communicate with Him unceasingly; regardless of how…thanks for the nice comment! 🙂
Jeff, A very powerful post. I am not a particularly religious person, however, your love of God shines through in your writing.
Thanks so much for the kind words Anita. I myself and trying to move our of being “religious” and just focus on relationship with my Maker. So many people get caught up in the rules and buildings and never really settle in to truly knowing their higher power. Thanks so much for the affirming words! 🙂
Nice post, I’ve never seen quite this type of explanation of the different types of prayer. There must be a reason why I was led to this link today. Thank you!
Thanks Alana for the compliment; glad you did make it by and I myself really rally never thought about it this way until it was shared with me. Makes so much sense and helps to actually approach praying in a few different ways! Thanks so much for the comment!
Beautiful post. I had not thought about these specific forms of prayer in a long time. Years ago our church studied on prayer and we concentrated on praying in one form on each day for 5 days of the week. It was truly a wonderful experience to have an entire congregation praying in the same form on certain days!
Kim, thanks so much for the comment. That does sound like an awesome experience; powerful! What a great idea for entire churches praying in the same form of prayer and for the same cause! Remarkable!
Thanks so much for sharing such an awesome idea! I appreciate your comment!
Great post. Our best prayers is when we converse with God
Thanks so much for the comment. I believe so many people are afraid they will pray the wrong way; the great thing is there is no “wrong”; God just wants to have relationship with us; so just talk to Him! He will listen! 🙂 Thanks again for the post!