Different types of praying ( part 1 )

All basketball is sport, but not all sports are basketball. Similarly, asking God for things is prayer, but not all prayer is asking God for things.

Basketball is a type of sport, it involves a ball and (if you are doing it right) a basket. You can practice alone but it becomes really good when you have other people who understand the rules and can play with you. There are many other sports that use a ball and some that also use a basket. But they are not all basketball. 

If you try to take the rules for basketball and apply them to say, netball, then you are going to get disqualified in a hurry. 

In the same way, if you take the rules that apply to petition prayers and apply them to declaration prayers then you are going to end up with little or no results. 

Some people get really angry at the idea that there are rules to follow when praying and that, if you follow them you will get better results. 

Those people tend not to see a lot of answered prayer. 

God has set the universe up to run on rules. Gravity runs on rules, electricity follows rules. You may not agree with the rules but if you jump off of a building refusing to accept the rule of gravity, you will end up just as dead as someone who did.

So there are different types of prayer but they are all prayer. There are different types of talking but they are all talking. Lets have a look at a couple of types of prayer and some of the 'rules' to follow that will help you get results.

Adoration: Sometimes called praise or worship. This is how Jesus taught people to start their prayers. Adoring the Father, asking that His name be recognised as holy (that's what 'hallowed' means by the way). Sometimes this is just between you and God in the secret place, other times it breaks out when his people are together. The bible talks about this a lot. 'Come Magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His name together' (psalm 34). 

As we remind ourselves of how great God is (magnify) and we lift up his name, problems get shrunk back to their proper place. A good rule here is to follow the formula that Jesus taught in prayer. Start off with adoration. Stay there until Holy Spirit prompts you to move on. You may find that you don't move on. Often adoration is enough and the issue you wanted to bring to your father is sorted out right there. 

Praying in Tongues: Paul says that we should eagerly desire spiritual gifts. I would argue that God is a good father. He won't ask you to eagerly desire something that he has no intention of giving you. It took me quite a while to receive the gift of tongues (because I had some weird ideas about religion that got in the way).  To start with I just received one single word in my prayer language. The bible says to speak as the spirit gives utterance though so I just said that one word over and over the day I got it. That evening I was in the shower (always a spiritually rich place), saying my one word. Somewhere between the first and second rinse, my one word became a whole prayer language. When we are faithful with what God has given us, we qualify ourselves to receive more.

I would not be without praying in tongues. It means that I can pray into situations when I don't know how to pray into them. 

I don't really understand what I am praying but I find that, if I pray in tongues over a situation, pretty soon I have some things to pray in English. 

The rules on this one are that you should pray to receive an interpretation (not the same as a translation) if you are going to pray loudly in a tongue during a corporate prayer meeting. Otherwise no one else in the church is built up by your prayer. 

Often I will pray in tongues during corporate prayer meetings but I tend to do it quietly so that it doesn't distract other people. If I am praying for someone else then I will often start in tongues and then ask Holy Spirit to give me the rough sense of what the prayer language is saying. Then I do my checks (is it edifying, is it scriptural, is it the right time?), and pray on in English.

There is lots more that we can talk about when it comes to types of prayer. For today, I would encourage you to search the scriptures, learn the rules and ask God to give you the gift of a special prayer language so that you can find it easier to pray. There are a host of resources out there that can help you with this. Part 2 next.