21 Days of Prayer – Day 17

Prayer takes on many forms. Sometimes it may look like praise. Sometimes it’s prophetic. Other times it is contemplative and quiet. Many times it’s making needs known to our Father. Sometimes it looks more like a light hearted conversation. Other times it’s a cry for help! Still at other times prayer is just a sigh, a groan, a word under our breath or an overflow out of our spirit. Sometimes it’s well put together and sounds great. Other times we fumble over our words and struggle with what to say.

The point? There is not a formula. There is not one single way to pray. There are tools to help but not necessarily any rules to follow along the way. There are certain ingredients but not one cookie cutter result. Why? Because God wants a relationship with us. If it were all scripted it would feel fake and pointless. Somehow God would be cheated by that I think. God wants a REAL relationship with us and that means that prayer will have different expressions depending on what’s going on in our lives at the time. Even the Lord’s Prayer is more of a framework than a formula.

Interestingly enough, all of these different forms of prayer can be prayed with faith as the main ingredient. It really doesn’t matter what form prayer takes on with us, what matters is that time in prayer is forming us into who God wants us to be. Genuine prayer is all about genuine relationship…that’s something all of us can do!

– Pastor Shawn