Practicing Prayer

At the end of his book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Tim Keller provides a simple template for practicing daily prayer. His template is based on a broad study of how Christians have generally approached personal prayer throughout church history. Remember, this template is just one option for practicing daily prayer and can be tweaked, adjusted, reduced, added to, etc. An important first step in putting this into practice is finding a quiet place and time to pray, which may be the hardest step!

1. Evocation: before doing anything else, sit with the Lord quietly, allowing yourself to physically and mentally settle. “Evocation” means “bringing to mind,” so use this time to think about the Lord and ask him to focus your heart and mind on him.
2. Meditation: use a Bible reading plan to read a passage or two from Scripture, or just read a verse or two if your time is limited. Then, take some time to meditate on God’s words that you have just read. You can use the questions from the sermon on Scripture to do so.
3. Word Prayer: use the words and phrases and concepts from the Scripture you read to pray verbally to the Lord. This can be out loud, silently, or in written form. Depending on the passage, your prayer may be adoration or confession or thanksgiving or supplication, or some combination of one or more.
4. Free Prayer: take some time to offer “stream of consciousness” prayer, essentially praying about whatever comes to mind. It may be a particular stress point, or something coming up later in the day, or a prayer for someone you know, or something you’re especially grateful for.
5. Contemplation: end with a time of silence, simply sitting in the presence of the Lord, savoring the time and giving thanks for the opportunity to experience peace and rest in him. Hopefully one or more of these steps will be helpful to you in cultivating a deeper life of prayer.

Click HERE for a sample Bible reading plan that may be helpful in cultivating consistent Bible reading.