How to Start Praying

How do I start praying?

If you came here looking for how to pray, the first thing is worth saying plainly: you do not need special vocabulary, or a formula, or training. Prayer is speaking honestly with God. That is true, and it is a good place to begin.

But there is something underneath it that almost no one will tell you, and that is what this page is for.

Start by noticing who asked this question. Not curious strangers. Men who had walked with Jesus for months, who had watched Him slip away before dawn, who had seen Him pray through the night.

“Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’”

— Luke 11:1 (ESV)

Notice the order of events. First they watched Him pray. Then they asked to be taught. What they saw did not make them feel expert; it made them ask for help. The verb they use is δίδαξον (didaxon, Strong’s G1321), an imperative — not “explain the theory to us,” but “teach us to do it.”

So if you do not know how to pray, you are in the company of the Twelve. The question is beneath no one. It is the question asked by the men who knew Him best, and Jesus did not rebuke them for asking. He answered.

What do I say when I start praying?

Here is the good news that many find hard to believe: before teaching what to say, Jesus spent time clearing away two things that are not prayer. He did it first, and He did it in mercy, because they are exactly the two things that paralyze a beginner.

The first is prayer as performance.

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

— Matthew 6:5–6 (ESV)

The word rendered “hypocrites” is ὑποκριτής (hypokritēs, Strong’s G5273). In the ordinary Greek of the day it named a stage-player: someone performing a part that is not his own. Jesus is not describing unusually wicked people. He is describing prayer aimed at an audience instead of at God. And His remedy is disarmingly simple: shut the door. If no one can hear you, no one can grade you.

The second thing He clears away is the idea that the quantity of words moves God.

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

— Matthew 6:7–8 (ESV)

“Heap up empty phrases” renders a single Greek verb, βατταλογέω (battalogeō, Strong’s G945), which the lexicons define as to chatter, to be long-winded, to utter empty words, to repeat. What Jesus forbids is not persistence — He commanded persistence elsewhere — but the mechanism: the idea that piling up words produces a result, as though God had to be persuaded or worn down.

And then comes the reason, which is the most freeing sentence a person who does not know how to begin can read today: your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

You are not assembling an incantation that has to come out right. You are not informing God of something He had not heard. You are speaking to a Father who already knows, and who wants to hear it from you anyway — like any father who already knows what is wrong with his child and sits down to listen all the same.

This, incidentally, is this ministry’s confession, formally adopted and published in our Statement of Faith: eternal life is not the holding of correct opinions about God but the knowing of God Himself — ginōskō, to know by relationship and experience, not by information. We reject religion as a substitute for Christ: the outward form, and the appearance of godliness that denies the power. Prayer is not a rite performed well or badly. It is dealing with a Person.

Why can I come to God at all?

Here we reach what this page actually wants to give you, and what you will find almost nowhere else you look for “how to pray.”

Everyone will tell you that prayer is a simple, honest conversation with God. That is true. Almost no one will tell you why you are permitted to have it.

Look at the first word Jesus put in our mouths when they asked Him to teach. Not “Lord.” Not “Almighty.” Not “Judge.”

“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’”

— Matthew 6:9 (ESV)

Father. A family word. And it is not a kind metaphor: it is a purchased standing.

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”

— Romans 8:15 (ESV)

“Adoption” renders υἱοθεσία (huiothesia, Strong’s G5206), which the lexicons gloss as adoption as sons. And “Abba” (ἀββᾶ, Strong’s G5) is not Greek at all: it is Aramaic, the household word a child used for his father. Paul left it untranslated. He kept it exactly as it sounded in a child’s mouth.

Notice who cries out in that verse: we cry — first person plural. It is us. But a letter earlier, Paul writes the same scene with a different subject:

“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”

— Galatians 4:6 (ESV)

Here the one crying is the Spirit. The Greek participle agrees with “the Spirit,” not with “sons.” Two verses, two subjects, one cry. When you say “Father” and feel you say it with too little faith and less right, there is Someone saying it inside you with all the certainty you lack.

And on what basis do you come in? Not on your performance.

“For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

— Ephesians 2:18 (ESV)

“Access” renders προσαγωγή (prosagōgē, Strong’s G4318): the act of being brought and presented before someone. And look at the shape of the verse, because it is the shape of all Christian prayer: through him — the Son; in one Spirit; to the Father. You do not pray alone. You pray inside a work all three Persons are doing on your behalf.

And the price of that access is written down:

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”

— Hebrews 10:19–22 (ESV)

“Confidence” here is παρρησία (parrēsia, Strong’s G3954), the same word this blog studied in “Does God Still Answer Prayer Today?”: frank confidence, freedom to speak without reserve. There it was the freedom to ask. Here it is the freedom to enter. And the text says exactly where it comes from: by the blood of Jesus.

This too we confess formally in our Statement of Faith: the promise of the Spirit was purchased at the cross — by the suffering, death, blood, and resurrection of Jesus Christ — and so we hold it as what it is, a blood-bought gift.

So when you kneel, or drive, or lie awake and begin to speak to God, you are not forcing a door. You are walking through a door that was opened at enormous cost, and left open.

Is there a right way to pray?

Two questions usually arrive together: are there words I have to say, and is there a correct way to do this?

Begin with the formula most quoted and least understood: praying “in Jesus’ name.”

“In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

— John 16:23–24 (ESV)

Be exact here. In the Greek, the phrase “in my name” stands next to “he will give it to you”; our translations read it with the asking. The position allows both, and the text does not settle it. What is not in dispute, and what matters for you, is this: the name is not a word appended at the end to make a prayer work. The name is what you are standing on to be there at all. You come bearing the Son’s family name. That is your credential, and you have no other, and you need no other.

And to the second question — whether there is a correct way — Jesus answered by giving a pattern, not a technique.

“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’”

— Matthew 6:9–13 (ESV)

Look at the order, because the order teaches. First His name, then His kingdom, then His will. Only then do we appear, and we appear with the simplest thing there is: bread for today. Then forgiveness, asked and given. Then deliverance.

Jesus did not say “repeat this word for word or it does not count.” He said pray then like this — in this manner, along these lines. It is a mold, not a spell.

And from that follows something worth saying clearly, because many people arrive at this question carrying a weight Scripture never laid on them: Christian prayer has no required hour, no required posture, no required language, and no required place. There are no forbidden hours and no magic hours. You need not kneel, though kneeling is good. You need not pray aloud, though praying aloud helps many. You need not be in a building, though gathering is commanded. None of it is the condition of your access, because the condition of your access was paid at the cross, and you cannot add to it.

What kinds of prayer does the Bible name?

Nearly every guide you find will hand you an acronym or a list of steps someone invented. None is needed. Scripture names the kinds of prayer in its own words, and Paul manages to name four of them in a single verse.

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,”

— 1 Timothy 2:1 (ESV)

Stop at the third, because it is what binds this section to everything above. Enteuxis is a rare word — two appearances in the entire New Testament — and the lexicons observe that in 1 Timothy 2:1 it adds the note of confident access to God, what one classical lexicographer called plainly childlike confidence. That is to say: the very word Paul chooses for one of the four kinds of prayer carries the truth we started with — that you come as a child. The vocabulary of prayer and the ground of prayer turn out to be the same thing.

And that root has relatives worth knowing. Enteuxis comes from the verb ἐντυγχάνω (entynchanō, G1793), which is the verb of the Son’s intercession for you in Hebrews 7:25. And the Spirit’s intercession for you, in Romans 8:26, uses the compound ὑπερεντυγχάνω (G5241) — a text this blog has already treated in “Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?”. One root, three who intercede: you, the Son, and the Spirit. When you pray, you are joining a conversation already under way.

Paul returns to these words elsewhere. In Philippians he stacks three of the four:

“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)

And in Ephesians he pairs two and adds something new:

“praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”

— Ephesians 6:18 (ESV)

In the Spirit. Jude uses the same expression:

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,”

— Jude 20 (ESV)

And Paul describes his own practice with a precision worth reading slowly:

“What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.”

— 1 Corinthians 14:15 (ESV)

Notice that Paul does not choose between them. He says also. Praying with the mind — in words you understand, meaning what you say — is full and sufficient prayer, and it is where every believer begins. And there is also a praying with the spirit, which Paul practised and did not hide.

Here this ministry says aloud what it believes, because on this point many people have been hurt. This is our confession, formally adopted and published in our Statement of Faith: the manifestation of the Spirit is given as He wills; some believers receive the gift of tongues and some do not, and many who have not yet received are open and shall yet receive; we forbid not to speak with tongues; we earnestly desire that every believer be free to receive; and we make it no test of salvation, no measure of spirituality, and no condition of fellowship, membership, or service in this ministry. What is coerced is not of the Spirit.

Put plainly: if today you pray with your mind and nothing more, you are praying. Fully. No one in this house will suggest otherwise. And if God gives you more, you will receive it as a gift, not as a requirement you finally met. On order in the gathered congregation, which is a different matter from personal prayer, Scripture gives its own instructions, and we receive them as binding.

One more kind remains to be named, and this blog has already treated it at length. When what you bring is not a request but a grief, the Bible has a name and a form for that: lament. The Psalms are full of laments, and they are inspired Scripture. If that is where you are, read “Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?”, which was written for exactly that.

How do I keep praying?

Almost everyone who starts praying runs into the same discovery before long: starting is easier than continuing. Here are two things to know.

The first has nothing to do with you.

“Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

— Hebrews 7:25 (ESV)

“Always lives to make intercession” — in the Greek, two present continuous forms: He lives, and He is interceding, right now, without pause. While you pray, He is praying. And when you do not pray — when the day got away from you, when you had no words, when you fell asleep mid-sentence — He goes on interceding. Your prayer life does not rest on your constancy. It rests on His.

The second does concern you, and it is simple.

“pray without ceasing,”

— 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (ESV)

Three words in English; two in Greek. “Without ceasing” is ἀδιαλείπτως (adialeiptōs, Strong’s G89): uninterruptedly, without omission. It does not mean spending the day on your knees. It means the line stays open — that speaking with God stops being an appointment you schedule and becomes the air you breathe while you do everything else.

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”

— Colossians 4:2 (ESV)

“Continue steadfastly” is προσκαρτερέω (proskartereō, Strong’s G4342): to persist, to persevere in, to hold fast. It stands in the present imperative, the form for what is done continually rather than once. And notice that Paul cannot speak of persevering without mentioning gratitude: with thanksgiving. The perseverance Scripture asks for is not gritted teeth. It is going on speaking with Someone you have a great deal to thank.

Begin today. You do not need a quiet room, or thirty minutes, or the right words. You need to open your mouth and say “Father.” And if later it seems to you that God has gone silent, do not conclude that you did it wrong; this blog treats that question at length in “Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?”, and if what you struggle with is believing He still answers at all, in “Does God Still Answer Prayer Today?”.

An invitation

If in reading this you realized that you have never spoken to God as to a Father — that you have treated Him all your life as a stranger, or a judge, or as no one at all — there is a door open for you, and it was opened at a price you did not pay.

Begin here, in your own words, right now. Tell God the truth: that you do not know how to pray, that you want to know Him, that you have heard Jesus Christ died and rose to bring you home. He knows what you need before you ask Him, and He still wants to hear you say it. If you want to understand what it means to know Jesus Christ, we made this page for you: Know Him. And if you would like us to pray for you — by name, for your situation, today — write to us: ask for prayer. It is our joy.

Further study: 1 Timothy 2:1, ESV — Bible Gateway · 1 Timothy 2:1 interlinear · ἔντευξις G1783 lexicon · δέησις G1162 lexicon · Romans 8:15 interlinear · Ephesians 2:18 interlinear · Matthew 6:7 interlinear · Hebrews 7:25 interlinear

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