How to pray and what to pray for

Do you pray?

Do you know how to pray?

Do you know the proper way of praying?

Do you know what you should pray for?

As a Christian, prayer has been part of my everyday life. This is essential for my spiritual growth and this is also important for this is the one thing that keeps me going all day, everyday.

Through prayer, we ask God for guidance, protection, provision, and everything that we want. Prayer is our way to communicate with God and ask Him for the things we want. It is true that God knows what's in our hearts but it is also important that we should voice all those things to Him.

John 14:13-14 And whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Those verses above tells us God's promises that all we have to do is to ask and He will give it to us. That's how essential prayer is. There is no doubt that God can give everything to us, but we have to ask Him first for that.

Now, do you pray? If you pray, how often? And how do you come to Him in prayer? Do you just ask Him directly for what you want?

Anyway, here's a very simple pattern about how you should pray.

This is called the ACTS method. ACTS is an acronym for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.

ADORATION

Some of adoration's synonyms are glorify, praise and worship. This is how we should start praying. We are talking to a great and mighty God so it is important to give Him honorifics. Praise Him for His goodness and faithfulness and give Him glory and honor.

As for me, I usually start my prayer with "Loving heavenly Father, I praise you and I glorify Your name..." as simple as that. He deserves all glory and honor so it is a must that we give it to Him.

CONFESSION

It would also be nice to come to the Lord with a clean heart. So after we praise Him, let us come before Him, ask for His forgiveness for our sins, or if ever that we are feeling heavy and we are thinking something bad, let us first ask God to capture our every thoughts, give us clean hands and pure hearts, and forgive our every sins.

Let us confess and come to Him in repentance.

THANKSGIVING

Of course, we should always thank God for all the things that are happening in our lives. Good or bad, it have a purpose and we should thank God for all of it. Let's thank Him for His goodness and faithfulness, for His continuous provision in our lives, for the wisdom and knowledge He's giving us, for His protection, guidance, and all the things that He is doing for us. He deserves our deepest thanks and appreciation for that.

SUPPLICATION

This should be the last part. A part for ourself. A part where we can finally ask Him for whatever we want. The part where we ask Him to continue His goodness in our lives.

Our part should come last. After we praise Him, ask for His forgiveness and thank Him, it's now the time for us to ask Him for anything in His name.

And lastly, we should always end our prayer with "in Jesus name".

John 14:6 I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except trough me.

So you see, prayer should be made any time, anywhere, everyday. And the purpose of praying is not just about us, asking God for everything that we want. Prayer is the time where we praise God, confess to Him, thank Him, and the part where we ask Him for what we want is the least priority.

Now that we already know how to pray, here's what we should pray for. There is actually a lot of pattern for this but here's the one that we are following right now.

As you can see on the photo above, this is called the 5 Fingers of Prayer.

1. THUMB - People that are close in our hearts.

To be guided in this one and to not forget about a single soul that we should pray for, we are using an acronym FRANCO to remember every people that are close in our hearts.

F - family and friends

R - relatives

A - acquaintances

N - neighbors

C - classmates, churchmates, co-workers

O - officemates

1. INDEX FINGER - People that points us.

They are the people who leads us, points us or teaches us. They are the teachers, our church leaders, pastors, frontliners, coaches, and all the people you can think of whose job is to teach, guide or lead.

1. MIDDLE FINGER - People who's in authority.

As the tallest finger, these are the people who are in authority or all the people who work in the government. Starting from our President, Vice President, Senators, Congressman, Governors, Mayors, Barangay Captains, SK, and all of them who serves the government, from the top to the bottom. Everyone from the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary.

1. RING FINGER - People who are sick, poor and in need.

This finger is our weakest finger and at this portion, we should pray for the weak. Let us pray for all those who are sick that we know of and for all the Covid19 patients for their fast healing and recovery.

For the poor and those who are in need for God's provision in their lives. And to all the people that we could think of. Let's pray that poor families will experience God's goodness through giving them source of income to provide for all of their needs.

1. PINKY FINGER - Pray for yourself.

Just like in the proper way of praying, us comes last. This is the smallest finger and this is where we should pray for ourselves and for our own needs. In here, we can literally ask God for everything that we want. And of course, He will grant those to us according to His will.

There are a lot of ways, or methods or patterns that we could use but this is the one that is easy to remember and understand that's why this is the one that I shared to you.

Anyway, I hope you can apply these things the next time you pray. Thank you so much for reading. :)

If you have comments or suggestions about this one or if you have questions or if you want me to write something about a certain topic, feel free to express yourself at the comment section.

=)