Most things are awkward at the start.  Prayer is no different.  You were made for prayer, for your life to become prayer, but in almost all of us, those muscle are atrophied.

Prayer is not any sort of practice of thinking – positive or negative.  Prayer is relating.  Relating to God.  It is ceasing the self-dialogue and beginning a with-God dialogue.  It is a shifting of the attention from the horizontal to the vertical.

Start by deliberately picking a time and place to spend 20 minutes each day prayerfully giving your attention to God.  As long as the attention is on God, you are on the right track.  Thank God, praise God, complain, ask for things, pray for the people and circumstances that come to mind, etc.

When your attention drifts off, just refocus.

Pay attention to how that 20 minutes “tunes you in” for the rest of the day.

I’ll give you a couple of ideas to get you started.

1. Gratitudes and acknowledgements of what God has done in your life. Maybe write them in your journal.  Maybe not.  But say them to God.  Prayer is generally more powerful out loud, but not necessarily.
2. The A.C.T.S. Acrostic stands for Acknowledge to the goodness of God, Confess your sins, Thank God for who He is and His blessings, Supplication or ask God for what you want.
3. Christian meditation is not about emptying ourselves, but fulling ourselves with the things of God.  It is the kata of the soul – movement after movement, wearing and wearing the mindset of God into the soul until your instinctual movements more and more reflect the instincts of God.

Good places to start with meditation are with a heart tuned towards God, say these words over and over again:

• The Lord’s Prayer
• A Paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer
• The Apostles Creed
• Psalm 23
• Psalm 1
• Philippians 4:4-13

Pick one out you like, print it out, write it in your journal, or save it in your phone.  Prayerfully repeat the words over and over again.  Stick with whatever you pick for a few weeks.

Memorization will be a byproduct of meditation, but it isn’t the goal.  God and finding your life in Him is the goal.

Remember, almost everything new is challenging and awkward at first – and prayer is no different – but there is nothing else in this life that you could focus on learning that would have a more positive impact on your life and the world.

You can do it!

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You may also be interested in:

• The Lord’s Prayer – A Paraphrase
• Why Pray
• Beginning Again
• Habits VS Goals
• Worry VS Wisdom
• Prayer of Praise