I have no way of knowing for sure, but my sense is that far more people pray than those who don’t. Not only that, my sense also is that many of those who do pray often wish they were better at praying. I am one of those who would like to grow in prayer.

A beginning point in learning to pray is the example Jesus set in his prayer life. Luke 11:1 tells us, “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray’.” His response was what we call The Lord’s Prayer and a model for us.

During the last couple of months I have been thinking and reading about prayer and how I can do better in my prayer life. One of the books I read that was the most encouraging and challenging was by Robert Benson entitled In Constant Prayer (pub. by Thomas Nelson, 2008). Here are some selections that I found motivating.

“At some point, we have to move from talking about prayer to saying our prayers” (p. 81). I don’t particularly like the phrase saying our prayers, but I was convicted to stop talking about prayer to actually praying. Benson noted “The only way to become a writer is to write” (p. 96). I paraphrase his next observation: you do not become a person of prayer and then begin to pray. If you pray enough, you may yet become a person of prayer. People of prayer pray every day.

Two chapters later Benson slapped me in the face so to speak with this affirmation: “it is far more likely that we do not recognize God’s presence in our lives than it is that God is not present in our lives” (p.130, emphasis added). My takeaway is that one of the ways we can better recognize God’s presence in our lives is through growing in prayer.

Near the end of the book his honesty both challenged and encouraged me with his acknowledgement: “Sometimes I feel as though I have traveled far on this rode. But the truth is that in a way I am in the same place I was when I began all those years ago” (p.147). Based on what I had read in the previous pages I could not help but think he was being a little too hard on himself.

Benson also reminds readers that there is “the need for us to pray corporately as well as to pray personally” (p. 148). I have been present and participated many times in corporate prayer. Some have been moving and meaningful and others have been a mixed bag. Some of the most satisfying times of prayer for me have been in small groups, some with just me and my prayer partner of several years.

I’m for corporate prayer and believe Christians should be praying together. But my desire and challenge to readers of this post is to take steps to grow in our personal prayers – even if we begin with baby steps.

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photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/40646519@N00/21944196312″>Praying Outside St. Patrick’s</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;