How should Christians pray?

Question 11000.

How should Christians pray? It is one of the first questions a new believer asks and one that mature believers never entirely stop asking. The disciples had watched Jesus pray and their request was not teach us about prayer but teach us to pray, which tells us something about where the difficulty actually lies.

I want to answer practically rather than abstractly, because prayer is a practice before it is a doctrine. What follows is drawn from what Jesus taught, what the apostles modelled, and what I have learned in a good many years of getting it wrong.

The pattern Jesus gave

When Jesus taught His disciples to pray He gave them a shape rather than a script (Matthew 6:9-13). It begins with God: His name, His kingdom, His will. Only then does it turn to our needs, our forgiveness, and our protection. That order is the single most useful correction most of us need, because left to ourselves we start with our own list and rarely get past it.

The address matters too. Our Father in heaven holds two things together. Father speaks of nearness and welcome; in heaven speaks of majesty and difference. Christians pray to someone who is genuinely approachable and genuinely God, and losing either half distorts everything that follows.

Notice also how short it is. Jesus had just warned against heaping up empty phrases, and He gave a model that takes twenty seconds to say. Length is not the measure. Whoever told you that real prayer must be long was not quoting Jesus.

Praying in Jesus’ name

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13). This is not a formula that makes a prayer effective, as though the words functioned as a password. To ask in His name is to ask on His authority and in line with His character and purposes.

That is why the phrase both opens and limits. It opens because we come with a standing we could never earn; the way is open because of the blood of Jesus. It limits because asking in His name means asking what He would ask, and there are requests that cannot honestly be made in that name at all.

Ending our prayers in Jesus’ name is a good habit provided we know what we are saying. If it has become a verbal full stop, it is worth pausing over the next time you say it.

How Christians pray with persistence

Jesus told a parable about a widow who wore down an unjust judge, and Luke tells us plainly why: to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart (Luke 18:1). The point is not that God is reluctant and needs badgering. The point is that we give up quickly and need encouragement.

Persistence is also formative. When Christians pray about the same matter for years, something happens to the person praying. Desires are refined, motives surface, and we often discover that what we were asking for has changed shape by the time the answer comes.

I would encourage keeping a written list for exactly this reason. Memory is short and God’s answers frequently arrive so gradually that we miss them entirely unless we wrote down what we asked.

Praying with faith and with submission

Ask in faith, with no doubting, says James, and Jesus says whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it. Set alongside that the garden, where Jesus asked for the cup to pass and then said nevertheless not as I will, but as you will (Matthew 26:39). Faith and submission are not in competition.

Faith is confidence in God’s character rather than certainty about the outcome. When Christians pray in faith they are trusting that the Father hears, that He is good, and that He will do what is right, which is a very different thing from convincing ourselves that a particular result is guaranteed.

That distinction matters pastorally. A believer taught that sufficient faith compels God to heal will conclude, when healing does not come, that the fault is theirs. That is a cruelty, and it is not what Scripture teaches. See why some prayers seem unanswered.

Praying in the Spirit

We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26). That verse has carried more struggling believers than almost any other. Our praying is assisted from within, and its weakness does not disqualify it.

Praying in the Spirit means praying in dependence on Him, in line with the word He inspired, and with the freedom of a child rather than the anxiety of a servant. It is not a technique and it does not require a particular vocabulary. See what praying in the Spirit means and the Spirit’s role in prayer.

Practical matters

Have a time and a place. Jesus went out to a desolate place while it was still dark, and if He needed the arrangement then we certainly do. Pray Scripture back to God; the Psalms exist partly to teach us what to say when we have no words of our own. Pray aloud if your mind wanders, which most minds do.

Pray with others as well as alone. The apostolic pattern shows the church gathered in prayer at every significant moment, and there is a strength in corporate prayer that private devotion does not supply. And when Christians pray together, let the prayers be short enough that others can join in rather than sit through.

Do not measure a prayer by how it felt. Some of the most important praying I have done felt like nothing at all. Faithfulness in dry seasons counts, and God is not grading the experience.

Praying honestly

One of the reasons Christians pray badly is that we pray politely. We arrive with the voice we think God expects and leave the actual contents of our hearts at the door. The Psalms give no warrant for that at all. They contain complaint, bewilderment, anger, and long stretches where the writer tells God plainly that he does not understand what is happening.

Consider how the psalmist speaks: how long, O LORD? Will you forget me for ever? (Psalm 13:1). That is in Scripture as a model of prayer. When Christians pray with that kind of honesty they are not being irreverent; they are taking God seriously enough to bring Him the truth.

This matters pastorally, because a believer who feels unable to say what is really going on will eventually stop praying altogether. Better an honest complaint than a polite silence.

Praying together as a church

The New Testament shows the church praying at every significant moment. They devoted themselves to the prayers. They gathered and prayed when Peter was in prison. They prayed and fasted before sending out Barnabas and Saul. Corporate prayer was not an optional extra bolted onto church life; it was part of the structure.

When Christians pray together, some practical things help. Keep contributions short so that others can join. Pray about what has actually been raised rather than delivering a prepared address. Let newer believers pray in a few sentences without apology. And do not measure a prayer meeting by attendance, which discourages the faithful few who keep it going.

If your church has quietly let its prayer meeting die, it is worth asking what that says about where we believe the work actually comes from. Every congregation I know that recovered its prayer life did so because two or three people simply kept turning up.

When prayer feels like nothing

Most believers go through seasons where prayer is dry, distracted, or apparently unanswered, and many quietly conclude that they are doing it wrong. It is worth saying plainly that dryness is normal and is not evidence of God’s displeasure.

When Christians pray in those seasons, the temptation is to wait until the feeling returns. That is precisely backwards. Keep the appointment, use the Psalms when your own words fail, and let the practice carry you until desire catches up. Elijah, having seen fire fall from heaven, sat under a broom tree and asked to die, and God’s response was food and sleep before anything else (1 Kings 19:4-8).

That tenderness is worth remembering. Christians pray to a Father who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust, and He is not standing over us with a stopwatch.

So, now what?

Start smaller than you think. Five honest minutes daily will build something that an ambitious hour on Sunday evening never will. Use the shape Jesus gave: begin with who God is, move to His purposes, then bring your needs, your confession, and your dependence.

And if you have stopped praying altogether, begin again today without the preliminary of feeling guilty about it. The Father is not waiting for an apology before He listens. What is the one thing you have been meaning to bring to Him and have not?

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:6, ESV