Introduction

We are so glad you are joining us for these daily prayer posts. Over the next four weeks we are going to listen to the prayers of the Bible, and the saints of God. Their prayers are going to teach us how to pray.

Each devotion will take five to seven minutes of your time.

1. We will look at an insight from those who know something important about prayer.
2. We will listen to the prayers of people in the Bible—people just like us. And to people who gained a deep measure of spiritual intimacy with God because they prayed.
3. We will reflect, asking the same four questions each day that invites us to look and listen with intent.
4. And we will pray, for it is in praying that we learn to pray. And it is in praying that the Spirit changes our hearts.

May we encourage you to grab a notebook, a journal, something to write on as you do each prayer guide. Yes, it will add a few minutes to the time it takes to do the devotion, and it will also deepen your experience and shape your walk with God for years to come.

Look

The greatest tragedy in life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.

F.B. Meyer

Listen

It had been twenty years since Jacob fled home, his brother Esau vowing to take his life for stealing the blessing that was his. And now, any day now Jacob will meet his brother as he makes his way back home. And so he prays…

Genesis 32:9–12

⁹ Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, Lord, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ ¹⁰ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps. ¹¹ Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. ¹² But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

Reflect

What are some elements you see in Jacob’s prayer that help you know how to pray when you are afraid?

Pray

Using Jacob’s prayer as a template and a guide, make it your own today.

For example, begin your prayer acknowledging the history of God in your life, “God of my father,” or it may be He was God of your mother, or God of a relative or friend. Use Jacobs words as your own, and add your own.

Is there a promise of God you need to rest in, to trust? Tell God.