Below is an article found and shared by our Prayer Team.
While I am a proponent of a morning “quiet time” (a set time each day to read Scripture and pray), I encourage struggling and beginning pray-ers to find what works for them. Don’t force yourself into a pattern that might not fit who you are. Do you walk each day? Pray while you walk. Do you have a commute each day? Pray while you drive. You do not have to sit in the same chair in your living room for prayer to be effective.
But my mind will wander if I pray when I walk or drive, you might be thinking. So what?! When you walk with a friend and are deep in conversation, plenty of things might interrupt your conversation—another person coming toward you, a squirrel darting across your path, a siren in the distance. You pick your conversation up again. The same can happen if you’re praying. In a real sense, Jesus is walking with you. If something interrupts your conversation, simply start talking again.
Prayer is not as difficult as we often make it out to be. Just talk about what’s on your mind—and listen. No special words, no props needed. Just you and God.
Lord, keep me from the need to be “perfect” when I pray or from feeling inadequate if something interrupts my time with You. Help me to persevere in Your presence, and to not make prayer harder than it is! Show me how to find spare moments in my day to reach out to You – moments that might otherwise be wasted time. Whisper into my ear whenever there is an opportunity for us to talk with one another and let me be willing and able to walk with You whenever and wherever I find myself.
--Adapted from The Power of Personal Prayer (Learning to Pray with Faith and Purpose) by Jonathan Graf. This book is available at prayershop.org.
Prayer Points
Praise the Lord, who is your strength, your rock, your fortress and your deliverer (Ps. 18:1-2).
Give thanks that “the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength” (1 Cor. 1:25).
Confess your desire to rely upon your own strength.
Commit yourself to doing everything through him who gives you strength (Phil. 4:13).
Ask God to cause you to serve him with the strength that he provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 4:11).
The gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). Ask the Lord to apply this power to individuals whom you know are without it.
Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayershop.org.