P-R-A-Y-E-R

By Kelly Byrley

And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.

Isaiah 65:24

I love a good acrostic. The Lord gave me this one to remind me of some important areas to focus on during prayer.

P-Praise Him

We should desire to praise the Lord for His goodness and for Who He is. He is the sovereign God of the universe, Creator of all things, and Savior of the entire world! He loves us more than anything, so how can we help but praise Him? We should praise the Lord and have a spirit of thankfulness. Psalm 100:4 is a well-known verse that describes how we should approach our prayer time.

R-Reveal Sin

Sin is tricky. Sometimes, we think we are fine going about our day not really sinning too much. Then, we ask the Lord to reveal what we have done wrong, and He’s suddenly shining His light down into our hearts exposing our sin. Proverbs 28:13 reminds us that we cannot prosper with unconfessed sin. Asking the Lord to reveal our sin allows us to confess it and get back in fellowship with Him. We cannot miss this! Unconfessed sin blocks the Lord from hearing our prayers. Isaiah 59:2 makes this very clear.

A-Armored Soldiers

We need to pray for those who are in the spiritual battle. This includes ourselves and our families, but expands to our pastor and his family, fellow ministry laborers, missionaries, other Christians, and so on. We need to pray for protection and encouragement. It has never been more apparent that we are in a spiritual battle. 1 Timothy 2:1, Job 42:10, and Ephesians 6:18 are some great verses about praying for others.

Y-Yucky Stuff

Sometimes, awful things happen to us and when they do, we can run to our Comforter. It is important for us to share these things with the Lord instead of immediately running to others. At times, we may find ourselves in such deep pain that we cannot even form the words to say, but Jesus can articulate for us and intervene to the Father on our behalf. I am so thankful for Romans 8:26-27!

E-Eternal Salvation

We need to earnestly pray for the unsaved people in our lives. We should also ask the Lord to provide us with opportunities throughout our day to be a witness. The Lord is the Scheduler of divine appointments, but if we are not asking for those opportunities, they may not happen. We should also be praying for the salvation of the millions of people around the globe who have never heard the name of Jesus. They need the opportunity to hear the Truth! See Romans 10:14.

R-Request Anything

Philippians 4:6 is probably the most quoted verse about bringing our requests to the Lord. These requests can be anything from the tiniest thing to the biggest thing. I love Isaiah 65:24. I have had the Lord provide what I was going to request before I even had a chance to ask. What a loving God we serve!

This was in no way an exhaustive list of everything we should include in our prayer time. We can dig deeper into any of these areas, and there are countless more we could add. I pray that this is helpful as a starting point for someone who may be struggling in this area.