How do I know what to pray?

So you are at the prayer meeting. You have decided to open your mouth and put some prayer out into the universe. 

But how do you know what to pray?

Most Christians are stopped from praying out loud by fear. First of all, the fear of looking or sounding stupid (this is thinking about yourself, what the bible refers to as 'pride'). 

But once we have gotten over that, often the fear becomes, 'what if I say or pray something that is not in line with holy writ. What if I start to come out with something that is just crazy beans? 

To be honest, we all have moments when we are not hitting it 100% in prayer. The bible says that 'now we see as in a glass darkly, but then (when we are with the Lord in our new resurrection bodies), we will see face to face. Now we know in part, but then we shall know fully. Even as we are fully known. (Google it!).

So no prayer warrior gets it right all of the time. But then neither does any teacher or prophet or preacher or evangelist or anyone else. 

I am a worship leader, and sometimes I feel the internal 'tug' from Holy Spirit to bring a prophetic statement or an impromptu song whilst I am leading. 

Very often, these turn out to have been definitely from God. But I can tell you for sure that sometimes I have missed it. Maybe it was just something from my own head, or maybe I fell into the flesh for a few moments. 

With prophecy in front of the whole church on a Sunday, a good rule of thumb is, 'try it out on yourself first and, if you don't feel encouraged, then don't bring it'.

But today we are talking about prayer. How do I know what to pray in that meeting?

For me, I often find that God plants an idea in my mind. Very often this is in the form of a picture or image.  So, how do I decide whether to pray out loud or not?

Well, the first check that I always do is to place whatever it is I feel led to pray against what I know from scripture. This is obviously easier as you read more of the bible. If it clearly disagrees with something that Holy Spirit reminds me of in that moment, then I can be pretty sure that it is not from him and I dismiss it as from my flesh (or maybe from the enemy). 

The second thing I do is think about how I feel about whatever it is. I have learned over the years to take a moment and look for a sense of peace before I pray into a picture or an idea that comes to me during prayer meetings. If I get any sense of disquiet from Holy Spirit then I assume that its not from Him, and I will keep waiting and quietly praying to him privately until something else turns up. 

But if I don't get any internal leading to not pray it then I will often take the plunge and pray something. 

If I am still unsure as to whether I should pray something out loud, there is a third 'check and balance' that I have learned to use. I will (in my head)  ask Holy Spirit to make space for the prayer if it is from him but to ensure that there is not space for it if it is not from him. 

Prayer meetings can be pretty busy affairs, and it can often be really anxiety-provoking waiting for 'your turn'. 

Sometimes I die a little inside if I start praying at the same time as another brother or sister. There is a sort of embarrassed moment when we both try to give way to each other! This can get even worse when we are blending an 'in-person' meeting with people joining online. 

But I have found that, if Holy Spirit wants something said and the room is full of people who are sensitive to him, then a quiet space usually opens up naturally. 

Then I have to be brave and start praying.

Finally, if you want to be very sure that you are praying in line with God's desires and mission (we call this 'praying in the name of Jesus'), then I would recommend using a bible text or a psalm as your prayer template. Just read a line from the relevant psalm and then pray it in your own words out loud. 

It can be very helpful to have some 'guard rails' on your prayer as you start to build up confidence. 

I am in a constant love affair with Psalm 1. It's also very easy to find as you won't forget the number. So maybe I would crack that open on my phone in the meeting and wait for a quiet moment. Then read:-

Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly nor stands in the path of sinners. Nor sits in the seat of the scornful

and then I will simply start to paraphrase it into a prayer in my own words. Always use your own words. God is not impressed with your command of seventeenth-century English.

'God, we want to be blessed today, we want to experience your blessing here. So please help us to not be around ungodly people when they are talking. Help us to stay out of environments that lead to sin. Help us please not to be full of scorn'.

Then I will look for that inner leading from Holy Spirit, and if I don't feel that he wants me to stop then I might do the next verse and so on and so on. 

Christians have been praying through the psalms like this for thousands of years. It's a discipline that we stole from our Jewish brothers and sisters.