Learning How To Pray For Beginners: Start With A Simple Conversation

Denise struggled with prayer as a beginner. She wanted to be close to God, and she heard other people who talked about hearing God’s voice and walking with Him. But when it came to learning how to pray, Denise just felt awkward. She didn’t know what to say.

A friend encouraged her to spend five minutes a day trying to pray. She said, “The reason it feels awkward is because God is a stranger to you. You’ve heard about Him. You’ve accepted Jesus but haven’t truly developed a relationship with Him yet.”

Many people are where Denise was. They want to develop a relationship with God, but they struggle with the aspect of prayer. It might be helpful to think of your beginning prayers as a sort of “blind date.” Naturally, you’re going to feel awkward—you don’t know God yet. Not deeply and personally.

But if you take the time to push through the initial awkwardness and continue meeting for regular “dates” (e.g., prayer time), then you’ll develop a relationship. A deep, abiding relationship that sustains you through life’s storms. One that comforts you in your darkest moments and reminds you that you always have a Friend who will never leave.

Getting to this point takes time and intentional effort. But as a beginner, you can do things to develop and even strengthen your prayer life.

Understand What Prayer Is

The idea that prayer is a conversation sounds so simple on the surface. But when you first start praying, it can feel more like a monologue. After all, you’re talking, but you’re not hearing anything. Or are you?

It’s easy to miss God’s voice because He doesn’t always respond right away or in the exact manner we’d hoped. You might pray about money worries only to find twenty dollars later in the day when you’re at the grocery store. By this point, maybe you forgot about your prayer.

Perhaps you pray about a friend’s upcoming surgery and don’t think about her speedy recovery. Yet these are answered prayers. You simply weren’t aware of them.

Start your conversations with God by asking Him to open your eyes to how He’s working in your life and the lives of those around you. Ask that the Holy Spirit would remind you and make you aware of all the answered prayers that are happening.

Some Christians find it helpful to keep a prayer journal of what they prayed over. Make sure to add the date to your prayers. Later on, you’ll be able to look back and see how God has answered every request you’ve made.

Right now, I use a  smartphone app called Echo. It is an incredible free tool that allows you to list your prayers, and you can check them off when they’re answered. It’s easy to use, and you can set reminder notifications to remind you to pray throughout the day. It’s  really improved my prayer life.

God Answers Every Prayer

Some Christians assume that if God does not give them what they ask for, their prayer is unanswered. Yet God always answers His children—every single time, every single prayer. There has never been, nor will there ever be, an unanswered prayer in all of history.

Every prayer is answered. Not every prayer is answered in the way we’d hoped or in the timeline that we’d expected. Perhaps you prayed to be married by twenty-five. Maybe you prayed that your daughter’s illness would be cured.

God could answer your prayers for a godly spouse when you’re twenty-seven or even fifty-seven. God could answer your prayers for your daughter’s illness after she’s suffered for five, ten, or even twenty years.

This is where the difficulty of prayer happens. It’s easy at this point to let doubts distract you. You might even be tempted to ask, “If I don’t get what I want, what’s the purpose of prayer?”

God Is Not A Vending Machine

Sadly, there are some Christian communities where praying to God is presented as a type of vending machine. If you say the right words at the right time, then poof, God will grant your wish!

The problem with this approach is that prayer is about developing a relationship. A relationship with the Creator of Heaven and Earth. The One who knit every one of your cells together, who knows you more deeply than you know yourself (Psalm 139:13-14).

You have the beautiful gift of free choice. Yet, many Christians don’t feel this same freedom should be applied to their relationship with God. They feel as if God’s every answer to their prayers should automatically be “yes.”

When you’re always expecting God to do what you want, when you want, and how you want, you’re not seeking a relationship with Him. You’re seeking a transaction. This is dangerous ground and creates space for disappointment and disillusionment.

God's Will Prevails

This is a hard truth to accept, especially when you’re praying for what seems to be in line with His will. You’re not approaching the request like a vending machine. You know that God has the free choice to say “no.” You understand this truth.

But you’re praying for what you know based on Scripture to be His will. Perhaps you’re asking God to restore your marriage or to deliver your spouse from alcoholism. Maybe you’re begging Him to heal your child from a horrible disease.

Still, years or even decades may pass with God continually saying “no” to your request. There are many reasons that God denies us what we truly want.

Sometimes, it’s to grow your faith, such as He did with Joseph. At the end of over a decade of hardship, Joseph was able to proclaim confidently…

At other times, God has already granted your request, but it is an issue of timing. Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, longed for a child of her own. But it wasn’t until she was late in life that she was granted this.

The reason had nothing to do with Elizabeth and everything to do with the timing of her request. God planned to use John the Baptist to go before the Messiah (Luke 1:17).

However, regardless of how God answers your prayer, you can rest confident in one thing. God will always do what’s best for you, as evidenced in Romans 8:28.

Why Should I Bother Praying?

At this point, you might be wondering why you should bother praying. After all, God will do what He knows is best, and He’ll work everything out for your good. There’s no real point in the conversation.

But there’s an interesting moment recorded between God and King Hezekiah in Isaiah 38:1-8. In it, the king has become very ill, and the word of the Lord reaches him, telling him that it’s time to get his affairs in order.

Soon after this, another word from the Lord arrives. In this one, Hezekiah is told that God has heard his weeping and will grant him another fifteen years of life and restore his health.

It’s a fascinating event because it shows that God can be swayed by the prayers of His people. God may be planning a particular course of action, but because of your prayers, He may choose a different one.

No one can know the mind of God. It’s simply too vast to contemplate. But again and again, Scripture shows that God can and does adjust His plan based on the requests of His beloved children (that means you!).

Conversations With God Start With Sharing

In many ways, we can look at conversations simply as “sharing.” Maybe you share how your day went with your kids, your spouse, or even your pet. Perhaps you share about a fight you had with your co-worker or a funny moment that happened at school.

When you first start learning to pray, it may not feel as if God is listening to you. You may hear only silence, and in the silence, it’s tempting to believe that God is ignoring you or has forgotten you. But consider this: when you’re truly listening to someone else, aren’t you silent? Don’t you give the other person space to speak?

You’re not ignoring the other party. You haven’t forgotten them. You’re merely respecting their right to speak.

It’s the same concept with God. What you interpret as a silent dismissal is God patiently bending close to hear your words. He delights in hearing from you, and He loves to listen when you speak.

Learning How To Pray The A.C.T.S. Way

Around here, we love acronyms, and A.C.T.S. is a great model to follow when you first start learning to pray. It helps form your prayers so they make sense, gives you ideas for what to pray about, and prevents you from spending all your time just asking God for things. It also follows the model of the Lord's prayer. Which is the model Jesus taught us to use when we pray.

We’ll start with ‘A.’

We recommend that you pray this way whenever you want to approach God in prayer.

God Is Never A Passive Listener

As you develop an active prayer life, you’ll begin to see how God responds to your requests. David recorded an interesting moment in Psalm 18.

David talks about God hearing his prayers, but then he makes another beautiful point in the next verse. He talks about how smoke poured from God’s nostrils and how God was furious on his behalf.

It’s tempting to believe that God is a passive listener. You may think of Him as this kindly grandfather who listens to your prayers before patting your head and sending you on your way without actually doing anything.

Yet Psalm 18 is a powerful reminder that God is never passive. He is always active. He is still working on your behalf. This means you can rest assured that when you pray, God is not ignoring you. He is listening to your words, and they are spurring Him to act.

What About When I Can't Pray?

The topic of prayer is well and good. A conversation is a beautiful thing to have with God…but what about the days when your heart is too full to pray? When life has once again knocked you down, and it feels as if you’ll never rise again? What do you do on those days?

In these moments, it can be helpful to remember...  

The Holy Spirit that lives within you as a child of God is interceding on your behalf. On the days when you can’t find the words, when the pain is too deep, and the waves of anguish continue to batter your heart, know this: the Holy Spirit is praying for you.

In this very moment, the Holy Spirit is communing with the Father, sharing your deepest longings and your sharpest hurt. He is pleading for precisely what you need, even when you are silent.

Some Christians find it comforting to just begin calling out the name of God in these moments. Like a child crying for their Father, repeat His name again and again.

Cry out like the beggars on the side of the road who yelled out the name of Jesus. It’s recorded in Scripture that each time the needy and weak called out, Jesus stopped. He paused whatever He was in the middle of to listen to those who needed Him the most. He was never too busy to hear and to heal.

Approach God Boldly

When you talk to God, pray boldly. Come to His throne in full confidence. Not as a beggar hoping for scraps of affection. Arrive instead, knowing that you are a beloved child of God. You come not as a beggar but as an heir.

In Hebrews 4:16, Paul instructed the children of God to…

Not only should your approach be bold, but so should your prayers. Phillip Brooks said, “Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.”

Prayer is a conversation. It’s a beautiful, deep conversation that has the power to change you, change your situation, and even change the world. But more than all of that—more than any results or changes you see—it’s the beautiful beginning of a deep and abiding relationship with the One who created you. That’s worth everything.

Grace and peace,

Alicia

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