A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller provides an understanding of biblical prayer. Aim to make prayer a normal part of daily life.

Prayer to and with God should be as normal as talking to yourself as you go about your daily activities.

If people are self-aware, they will know that they carry on conversations with themselves in their heads for most of their waking moments. The trick of making prayer a natural and normal part of daily life is to turn those internal conversations outward to the Lord.

Prayer is a skill that can be learned, just as believers learn how to read and understand the Bible. And next to reading Scripture, no other aspect of walking with Christ is as important for navigating life and growing spiritually as engaging in prayer. But prayer should be more than a religious chore or duty and should be treated as a vital aspect of life and the best way to be in touch with the heart of our heavenly Father.

In this summary, you will learn:

  • how to approach God as a little child;
  • what it means to trust and commune with the Father; and
  • ways that prayer helps us to see the story that God is writing for our lives with Him.

The majority of Christians find prayer difficult and unnatural, but the effort to make prayer a part of life is definitely worth it.

When our prayers go apparently unanswered, we may become cynical and face spiritual doubts. Our most common problem with prayer is that we can only last about five minutes at best before our minds drift and wander.

Praying exposes how much we are wrapped up in our schedules and agendas and only demonstrates how poor we are at prayer. Because many of us in the US have relatively comfortable lives, we trust more in ourselves and our abilities than really seeing how desperately we need God. And prayer remains an afterthought.

We may also have a dysfunctional relationship with God, and in this scenario, prayer becomes a confusing and frustrating chore rather than a source of delight and encouragement.

To reach the goal of a praying lifestyle, we should understand what good prayer looks and feels like. A praying life is about relationships. It is more about who we are talking with than the words we are using. Many people get frustrated with prayer precisely because they approach it as an abstract discipline, forgetting that prayer is about a relationship. As such, it needs to be a part of our entire life. Since prayer should be connected to every part of our lives, it is a maturing process like other aspects of who we are.

The goal of prayer should not be an experience of God but of getting to know God intimately. Just like you take a lifetime to learn about your spouse or your children, it is a lifelong process to get to know the infinite God better.

If we think of our lives with God as a long story with the typical slow parts mixed with dramatic, exciting, or tragic parts, this will help us not to grow cynical or hopeless. Rather this knowledge will help believers maintain a healthy hope in God and what He is doing overall in our lives. Since all things are possible with God, and since we are His children, change is possible – and this realization leads to hope.

As we get to know our Father better, we will learn more about our own hearts. Like any deep, healthy relationship, we cannot help but be changed through our interactions and relationship with God.

Praying like a child is to be exactly who you are as you talk to the Father.

Jesus loved little children and told His disciples on numerous occasions to be like little children before God. But we adults try to act like we know what we are about when we go into prayer, trying to get it right but failing.

Prayer forces us to come face to face with exactly how unspiritual we really are. But little children don’t concern themselves with how they are and how others perceive them. They just come out with whatever is on their minds or hearts.

Just like a parent who is delighted with their child’s first steps, God also rejoices when we come to Him with our immature and unsteady prayers. Jesus specifically invited us to come to Him when we are worn out and feel like the world’s weight is on our shoulders.

If we don’t come to God in prayer like we really are, without any pretenses, then we are no better than the Pharisees. We need to take a little time before we pray to examine what is really in our hearts that is causing us worry, fear, or sadness. The very things we wish as Christians we did not have (like our fear, lack of faith, and feeling burned out) are the keys to getting us into the inner chamber with God.

The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that we are praying to our Father in heaven. Coming to God in our weakness and cluelessness touches God’s fatherly heart.

Children ask for everything and anything. They repeatedly ask without any deviousness. Jesus says this is how we should ask God about our needs in prayer.

It is crucial to believe like a child. It never really enters a child’s head to think that their parents do not love them or lack the ability to give them what they want. Learning to pray like that with God is like learning how to dream again.

Our prayers can be like the conversation of a child. Children’s conversations range all over the place when they are talking, but they don’t get embarrassed by that. So pick up that style, and if you get lost in prayer, don’t let it bother you. Prayer is intended to draw us into the heart of God. After all, the goal of being a Christian is not to learn so many theological truths that we feel we no longer need God…

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