A week or so ago, I wrote a post that said don’t just pray but instead just pray! And I know reading that line might be confusing if you don’t read it in context, so I’ll try to explain for those of you who didn’t read the post. The idea is simple actually. How often is prayer thrown in as a last resort? That’s the idea behind don’t just pray. It’s like we can’t figure it out on our own so we may as well pray because it won’t hurt anything.

That is totally different than knowing that all you can do is pray and starting out that way from the beginning. That’s what I refer to as instead just pray. It means, start from the position that God is the only way not the last resort. Start form the place of reliance on Him instead of DIY-ing it through life.

If just throwing prayer in as a last resort isn’t the best way to handle things, then what things should I pray for? The short answer is everything! The Bible says to pray without ceasing. Pray through the good times and the bad. Pray in moments of plenty and times of want. Pray with you’re feeling lost and alone, but also when you’re experiencing what being loved and cared for feels like. If you read no more than these couple words, know that it is clear prayer is a vital part of the Christian life and we should do it far more often and far more intentionally than we currently do!

But for those of you who want to go a little deeper and get a little more depth into prayer, let’s keep going. Sure we are to pray for everything but really what kinds of things? And how in the world do you do it? These are questions that I hear a lot! I know some people who pray for hours every morning in the dark corner of their kitchen or living room before anyone gets up. This was how my grandpa did things. But I also know some people who are pretty darn ADHD with their prayer life, hello that’s me! We have a hard time just staying focused on prayer while we’re reading one let alone pray for hours in a dark room.

Pray the little things.

One of the things in life that makes me chuckle but also shake my head is when people talk about prayer as if God doesn’t really care about the little things. I know a guy who prays before he leaves his home that he gets a close parking space at the grocery. For a while I thought that was absolutely ridiculous. I mean really? Does God need to worry about where you park?

But then it hit me. I obviously had a wrong view of God. If I truly believed that God was a loving father, then why wouldn’t he want to know about my silly wants? I loved hearing my children tell me about their silly desires when the were kids. As a matter of fact now that they’re growing up, I find myself missing these conversations more and more. I want to know what they’re thinking and what’s going on in their day. I believe God has the same feeling toward us. He wants to know what’s going on. So tell him the little things. Share your frustration with your bad hair day, or your realization that you have no hair kind of day. Share your happiness of the new personal record in weight lifting or speed in running.

God cares about the little things. Share those. He knows them already but just like a good dad wants to hear what’s going in their children’s lives, so also your Heavenly Father wants to hear from you too!

Don’t forget the BIG things.

The other end of the spectrum is that person who doesn’t feel they can ask God for the big thing in life because they’re not good enough or haven’t earned the right to ask God for something of that magnitude. But God wants us to bring the big, huge, gigantic requests before him as well!

I am not going to say that God gets bored freeing up front row parking spaces but come on he’s the creator of the universe. We can probably give him a little more than give me a better hair day tomorrow! Test God with your prayers a little. Ok before you get all weirded out by that statement, it’s not testing to see if he’s real. It’s taking what he’s given you and promised to you and testing his promises. God won’t disappoint. He will, as it says in Malachi 3, open the floodgates of blessing. While that passage refers specifically to bringing our offerings to God, I really think it applies here to our prayers as well. Test God in his promises.

I had a professor once say that prayer is rubbing God’s promises back in his ears. Not that God needs reminding but that we need to be reminded of God’s faithfulness. We need to be reminded of the ways God has already answered us in the past and how he’s still present with us today.

So here’s a question for you to ponder. What are you praying that you actually need God to answer? Understand what I’m asking. What are you praying for that God alone can answer? Are you praying prayers small enough that if you wait long enough, drive around the parking lot enough times, you can find the answer? Or is the prayer of your heart today something that God alone is able to answer?

I think so often we either don’t pray big prayers because we don’t think we can or because we don’t even think that big. But God is a big God. He created all of the world and everything in it, I’m sure he can handle whatever our tiny little brains can dream up. Pray the earth melting, kingdom exploding kind of prayers. Pray for healing when the doctors say it’s not possible. Pray for some miraculous explosion of God’s goodness and mercy to be rained down on you today. Pray something so big that you can’t mistake it is actually God answering when it actually happens.

Ok so there you have it, pray for the bad hair days and the give my bald head new hair moments. Pray for the rain to water the ground and for God to raise up a power house of light and grace in your community. Pray the little things that no one else cares about, but also pray those things that God alone is able to pull off.

In short – pray because it’s more the one to whom you pray than the thing for which you pray.