Prayer is an essential part of my day. Its how I ground myself and get ready to face the world. Thanking God for what I and my family and friends have and asking for what we need. In times of stress and worry it can be more asking than thanking though. One of my favorite verses on prayer is 1 John 5:14-15.

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of Him.” — 1 John 5:14-15

“But how do I know what the will of God is?” Now, that is the sixty-thousand-dollar question. Let me assure you that you can; God does not torment us by hiding His will from us, though at times it does take a little effort to discern it. If someone asks me, “Pray for my mom and my dad to reconcile,” I don’t simply start praying that. For one thing, I don’t know with any sort of certainty that reconciliation is what God is doing in this moment. It may well be the will of God that her parents reconcile, but it may also be that first He wants to address something in their life. God doesn’t just put Band-Aids on things; it would be far more like Him to first deal with the sin that was poisoning the marriage, and then bring about reconciliation.

I want to live and pray like God’s intimate ally, so I turn my gaze toward God and ask, “What do You want me to pray for her mother and father? Show me what to pray.” Those prayers are far more effective because they are aligned with His will. They are aligned with what He is doing in the situation at this particular moment. It is a hard thing to do because the needs that drive us to prayer so often pull on the heartstrings of our deep love and concern for others.

As Oswald Chambers warned, we have to be careful we don’t simply start praying our sympathies for the person or their need, of course we pray moved by love and concern, but you will want to ask God what needs to be prayed. Prayer is not making speeches to God, it is entering into real conversation with Him.