In the Psalms, David is usually telling God something, or asking God something. Sometime he is talking to other people or talking about God, but the psalms are songs that can be used as prayers.
As previously written, David tells God about his standing, what he is doing right or wrong and he even tells God what God has done or is doing. In most psalms, David also includes supplication. Supplication is a fancy word which means David asks for stuff. He might ask for things or safety or for revenge or for damage done to his enemies. There is little to no tracking on whether David gets most, some or few of his requests answered favorably. Therefore, people have not studied, at length, David’s requests.
Yet, we know David was called by God a man after God’s heart, so we can look at what David did and see how it fits into our practice.
There may be more books, websites and articles on prayer than any other biblical subject. This is because, there is a desire in many people’s hearts, to find a formula, or incantation or secret Bible verse or something else so that they can ask for a healing or for lots of money or anything else they desire, and they want to be assured to get it.
This is not how prayer works. James 4:3 is the strongest admonition against wrong prayer. It simply says that you ask for something and do not get it, because you will spend it on your own passions. From the context we see that the passions are sinful and evil desires that lead to murder. So praying for stuff to satisfy sinful appetites will not get answered favorably.
So what requests will be answered favorably? There is no formula. Most books on answered prayers just list the successful prayers and not the thousands of unanswered prayers, so there is no magic phrase that will manipulate God into action.
A general rule for modern Christians is to pray a prayer that Jesus could have prayed. Read the prayers that Jesus actually prayed and see how close your modern prayer matches. A person can also find the prayers in the rest of the New Testament and pray those. I believe that Paul had a pretty good track record with prayers. Also remember, that Jesus spent most of the time when normal people sleep, alone praying.
There are two major categories of prayers: tactical and strategic. A tactical pray is a prayer of short duration, where the answer can be known for sure. A safe trip for a loved one is a tactical prayer because the trip will occur and the safety of the trip can be known.
A strategic prayer is a big picture prayer where the answer may not be known in our lifetime. For example, I pray regularly for God’s plan, leading, path and projects for my church. The big picture of this may not be known by me, but may be reserved for the next pastor.
Colossians 1:9-12 is another prayer I pray every day. I pray it for the people I know and for myself. I won’t know the answer to that prayer, for myself, until I meet Jesus face-to-face.
As previously written, David tells God about his standing, what he is doing right or wrong and he even tells God what God has done or is doing. In most psalms, David also includes supplication. Supplication is a fancy word which means David asks for stuff. He might ask for things or safety or for revenge or for damage done to his enemies. There is little to no tracking on whether David gets most, some or few of his requests answered favorably. Therefore, people have not studied, at length, David’s requests.
Yet, we know David was called by God a man after God’s heart, so we can look at what David did and see how it fits into our practice.
There may be more books, websites and articles on prayer than any other biblical subject. This is because, there is a desire in many people’s hearts, to find a formula, or incantation or secret Bible verse or something else so that they can ask for a healing or for lots of money or anything else they desire, and they want to be assured to get it.
This is not how prayer works. James 4:3 is the strongest admonition against wrong prayer. It simply says that you ask for something and do not get it, because you will spend it on your own passions. From the context we see that the passions are sinful and evil desires that lead to murder. So praying for stuff to satisfy sinful appetites will not get answered favorably.
So what requests will be answered favorably? There is no formula. Most books on answered prayers just list the successful prayers and not the thousands of unanswered prayers, so there is no magic phrase that will manipulate God into action.A general rule for modern Christians is to pray a prayer that Jesus could have prayed. Read the prayers that Jesus actually prayed and see how close your modern prayer matches. A person can also find the prayers in the rest of the New Testament and pray those. I believe that Paul had a pretty good track record with prayers. Also remember, that Jesus spent most of the time when normal people sleep, alone praying.
There are two major categories of prayers: tactical and strategic. A tactical pray is a prayer of short duration, where the answer can be known for sure. A safe trip for a loved one is a tactical prayer because the trip will occur and the safety of the trip can be known.
A strategic prayer is a big picture prayer where the answer may not be known in our lifetime. For example, I pray regularly for God’s plan, leading, path and projects for my church. The big picture of this may not be known by me, but may be reserved for the next pastor.
Colossians 1:9-12 is another prayer I pray every day. I pray it for the people I know and for myself. I won’t know the answer to that prayer, for myself, until I meet Jesus face-to-face.
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