What to Do When You Don’t Know How to Pray About That Thing (Ep 221)

It could be a challenge, crisis, or even an opportunity. But what do you do when you don’t know how to pray?

In Christ, we have access to the Ultimate Resource — the Holy Spirit. Make him your prayer partner!

He will pray with you … showing you what to pray for, how to pray about it, and refilling you with his dynamism.

[Scroll down for links, resources, and scripture on this topic.]

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Go Deeper — When You Don’t Know How to Pray

The Spirit is a Spirit of life as well as truth, and the first thing that he always does is to make everything living and vital. And, of course, there is all the difference in the world between the life and the liveliness produced by the Spirit and the kind of artifact, the bright and breezy imitation, produced by people. (Living Water, 99)

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Partnering with the Holy Spirit is an opportunity without limits!

  • Our weakness is often that we don’t know what to pray about. And we don’t know how to pray effectively to get results. It’s really an “infirmity.”
  • When invited, the Holy Spirit comes to our side. As we pray in the Spirit, we touch that situation or issue in faith. We target it together with the Holy Spirit. He helps us.
  • The Holy Spirit shows us what to reach for in prayer and how to pray about it. Even more, He energizes and empowers our prayer!

Here is the key difference: in the flesh, we are pushing the prayers forward, while in the Spirit, we feel caught up in the way the Spirit carries the prayer forward. Praying in the Spirit is experiencing the Spirit of life bringing prayer to life.

Jason Meyer, writing for Desiring God

Resources

How to Pray in the Holy Spirit (Desiring God article)

Prayer Is Limitless! (Jesus Smart article)

When You Don’t Know How to Pray — Scripture for Meditation, Prayer, and Proclamation

when you don't know how to pray

With every prayer and request, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be alert with all perseverance and every request for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:18 NASB)

Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:26-28 NASB)

What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding. (1 Corinthians 14:15 NKJV)

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. (Acts 17:11 ESV)


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