Dear Pastor Chris,
I have been having trouble with my Prayer Life. I
have daily prayers and some days I pray throughout the day. I read in the
Upper Room Daily Devotion this morning, "When we have no Words", and
I truly believe God listens to my heart when I am out of words. However,
the problem I am having is when I do pray I find myself trying to get fancy or
mix it up, but I still find myself sounding like a broken record as I feel I am
praying the same prayers. I have a journal that I write down prayer
requests in and I read over it, thank God for the blessings, and ask him to
watch over me and my family and friends, but it begins to sound like I
mentioned above, "A BROKEN RECORD". Is this normal or should I
be doing something different?
Signed, Broken Record, Broken Record
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Dear Broken Record, Broken Record,
I commend you for your daily
practice of prayer. I can tell you take
prayer seriously and the use of a prayer journal is an excellent tool to build
your faith and spiritual muscles. Prayer
is simply your chance to talk to God. So
talk to God in ways that feel natural to you and know that God hears you. If you wish to “mix things up”, you might
focus on a subject that is different from your normal conversations. You could assign a different subject to each
day of the week. You might focus on local prayer concerns on Mondays, giving
thanks on Tuesdays, evangelism on Wednesdays, etc. Some other subjects of prayers could be
government leaders, church leaders, your family, your vision for the future,
God’s creation, etc. The topics for
prayer are limitless. Have fun thinking
of new ideas to talk about with God.
I wouldn’t be over-concerned about
sounding like a broken record though. Prayer
is an exercise. Sit-ups are another exercise
where you do the same things over and over again. The repetition is helpful for building
strength in your abs. The same can be
true of repetitive prayers. Repetitive
prayers can build your spiritual muscles and open up new insights over
time. As new needs or ideas arise, your
prayers will naturally change. If you
find your prayer time becomes too tedious because of repetition, just mix in
some new topics of conversation to keep your prayers fresh.
Keep up the prayers!
