Intentional prayers

‘When we argue that one should prepare for prayer and study to lead in public prayer, we are not, of course, saying that the prayer should be read aloud from a manuscript. Free prayer, rich scriptural free prayer, is too valuable a commodity to be lost to the church. It is studied prayer , not read prayer that we are advocating here.’ (GPTG 164) I have, at times, wondered if I’m praying the way God wants me to pray. Our reading has helped me to understand that biblically saturated prayers give us a more accurate lens in the way we see Christ that also enriches our conversation with God. I’m also reminded that when we pray based on Scripture, we can also have confidence and comfort that God is hearing and answering because we know that we are praying according to His will.

            Duncan points out that there needs to be a certain measure of intentionality in our prayer. We often tend to think that there can’t be freedom in a ‘studied prayer.’ However, it is easy to lose touch with what God has assigned for us if we trust our own righteousness rather than Christ’s. With no sense of intentionality, our prayers can be disrupted and the focus of attention may quickly change.

We forget that there can be wonderful freedom and joy in rich scriptural free prayer; how it expresses our feelings and our understanding accurately and compellingly. We do not realize that we are doing what we love (or should love) according to His will (1 John 5:14-15).

Some helpful guidelines for prayer from our reading are:

“Plan so as to offer brief prayer.” (165) I understand that if we’ve got a lot of ground to cover then it will be longer, but we are praying about a particular situation, we do not need to beat it to death. ‘Careful planning will help avoid the ‘verbiage and repetition” (165).

It is silly to “preach to God instead of praying to him”(165). This forces the listeners to think about the intention of the one praying rather than having their focus on God. Our prayers must be understandable, and succinct. They must be appropriate for the situation and moment. More importantly, they need to be fill with scriptural truths allowing the congregation to give glory to God.

How can we help others to understand and not fall into the trap of believing that studied prayers are not genuine?