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How is your prayer life? I must admit that I am often ashamed of the lack of time I spend with God in prayer. Though I desire to be, I am not what I consider a prayer warrior, a person whose first response to any situation is to talk to God. I suspect many of you are like me, needing a sincere adjustment to your prayer life. For many of us, prayer time tends to be the making of a wish list, similar to what we would present to Santa as children. For others, it’s more like sitting in a sound-proof cell, with little evidence that our voices are heard beyond our own ears. Some prayers have become simply methodical or rote, mere mumbles with little thought. Still others of us sit blankly, not ever knowing the appropriate way to approach an omnipotent God.

If your prayers ever feel like this, James 5:13-18James 5:13-18
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
13 If you are having trouble, you should pray. And if you are feeling good, you should sing praises. ¹⁴ . If you are sick, ask the church leaders g church leaders: Or “elders” or “presbyters” or “priests.” to come and pray for you. Ask them to put olive oil h olive oil: The Jewish people used olive oil for healing. on you in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ If you have faith when you pray for sick people, they will get well. The Lord will heal them, and if they have sinned, he will forgive them. ¹⁶ . If you have sinned, you should tell each other what you have done. Then you can pray for one another and be healed. The prayer of an innocent person is powerful, and it can help a lot. ¹⁷ Elijah was just as human as we are, and for three and a half years his prayers kept the rain from falling. ¹⁸ But when he did pray for rain, it fell from the skies and made the crops grow.

WP-Bible plugin is a helpful reminder of what God desires our communication be with Him. There is, in fact, no one approach God expects all the time, no specific reason or way we must talk with Him, but James does provide an outline of the type of contact God anticipates:

1. Seek God for wisdom and comfort in hard times: “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray.”
2. Celebrate God’s blessings: “Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.”
3. Trust Him as the Great Physician: “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.”
4. Repent and receive mercy: “If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.”
5. Unify with other believers and utilize the power of intercessory prayer: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
6. Demonstrate your trust in God’s power and promises: “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

Hopefully these verses offer you some comfort, as they do me, for they remind believers that what God wants most is to simply be an active part of every area of our lives, those good, bad, easy, or difficult. In the end, the important this is realizing that God desires to hear your voice and for you to hear his. Sometimes, in our prayers it may be best to just “be still,” as Mother Theresa seems to explain in an interview about prayer:

Mother Teresa, when asked by an interviewer what she said to God when she prayed, answered: “I don’t say anything. I just listen.” When the interviewer asked what she heard God say, Mother Teresa replied: “He doesn’t say anything. He just listens. And if you can’t understand that, I can’t explain it to you.”