Watch
Welcome back to the Channel. I’m Shannan Davis and we talk about how to follow Jesus in a modern world. We’re going to talk about three easy prayer models that will help you start a more structured prayer time or get out of a rut.
Are you a Weird Soul? Weird Souls live a Jesus-centered life in modern culture.
Got Questions? Leave a comment.
Transcript
let’s talk about three easy ways to pray hey everyone whether you’re a returning weirdo or a first-time friend I’m Shannon Davis and today we’re going to be talking about three different ways to easily start a prayer life or maybe just get out of a rut sometimes I like using different types of methods when I feel like it’s just getting kind of mundane or I’m just being self-centered a lot of times in my prayer and I want to try something new and different different methods of prayer have always kind of
shook things up and made me feel like I’m reconnecting with God in some ways that maybe otherwise I wasn’t so these are three really basic ways they’re acronyms they might be acronyms that you’ve heard before or heard reference to and you’re not really sure what or how to integrate them into your prayer life so we’re just going to kind of walk through them and give some ideas on how to use them outside of just straight up praying through it so the first acronym is ax acts it stands for adoration confession
Thanksgiving supplication and those most for the most part might feel like words that you know but let’s just talk about that so adoration adoration just means that you are telling God how great he is that you are recognizing God you are God and I see how good you are and how good you are at being God and just affirming that you realize who he is and what he has done the next word confession is what it says confessing telling God look I know I mess up I know I fall short of perfection of the perfect that you
expect of us I know I need Jesus and it can be general just acknowledging that I know I make mistakes or it could be really specific saying hey I know I messed up in this situation or I know I messed up with this person will you forgive me and just realizing and setting it that you know God is who he is and you know who you are and why you need him the next one is Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is what it sounds like you’re giving thanks to God for the things he’s given you in your life it can be really blatantly obvious things
like family and friends it can be more General things like the things of this world or something in this moment that just makes you realize that God does love and care for you I always like writing down things that I’m like okay I know God has a plan because I can see how these things are stringing together as these things make sense or different stuff along that lines and just really working through that Thanksgiving of all the big and little things both visible maybe it’s things in your mind maybe
it’s things you’ve experienced but that thankfulness of God being in control and what he has done for you and then the final one is supplication uh this I’ve seen two different ways but primarily it’s asking God for things that you need it could also be the other thing is asking for the needs of others so it’s just asking God to supply supplication kind of the way to think of it there but providing for the things that you need it can be physical it can be emotional mental it can be relational it can be in
any of kind of the categories of life that we’ve been talking through but supplication is just saying God because of everything that you’ve already done because of who you are I am asking you to do these things in my life and being bold this is something that I’m currently learning is being bold with God because most of my life I’ve been taught to pray in a way where it’s like hey God I’d really like this but I know you’re God and I know you have a plan so if it doesn’t happen I still trust you
and I know that it would like yes that sounds very Christian but we’re also called to be bold and ask our father for things the way a small child asks for ice cream 16 million times in one day hoping that you’ll change your mind after they ask for the 650 first time uh that’s how we’re supposed to go to God so not yes yes we need to trust God when he does say no and doesn’t give us the thing that we think we need and want but we need to go boldly and say God this is what I need this is what I
want you to do this is what I want you to do because of who you say you are and what you’ve already done in my life I know you can and being really bold with what we’re asking of God but because we’ve already aligned with who God is what we’re asking is probably going to align with who God is and who he says he is and that will only increase our trust as we continue to ask boldly for the things that we need so that’s acts a CTS adoration confession Thanksgiving and supplication so our next acronym is pray p-r-a-y and it
stands for praise asking repentance and yielding so the first one prays similar to acts it’s setting up the standard of God I Know Who You Are I Am praising you because of what you have done and who you are and what you’re able to do and what you’ve promised in all of those things repentance is similar to confession but it’s not just the hey I’m sorry I did this wrong it’s also saying this is how I’m going to change this is what I’m going to do right this is how I’m changing my trajectory from going
off center of perfect and trying to get back on center of the perfect life that you expect of us asking is simply asking God for what you want to happen asking on your behalf on others behalf asking for the things that you want and need and want to see in the world the changes that you want to see in the world so asking God for things and then yielding is that final step of saying but your will be done it’s like Jesus in the garden right before his crucifixion Jesus was asking for something completely different than what the plan
was because he knew how much it was going to hurt and how bad it was going to be but at the end of it he said that I will still do the thing you have asked me to do if that is what you want and he did and so that final step of just saying this is what I’ve been asking for but I’ll do what you want me to do regardless and then our final method of prayer actually Partners well with reading your Bible and journaling it’s soap s-o-a-p and it stands for scripture observation application and prayer and
so the first step is just finding a scripture that you want to focus in on it can be a chapter it can be one verse but just finding a scripture that you’re going to focus on writing it out can help maybe you’re just going to do this verbally and read through it several times meditate on it ask God what is it that you want me to learn from this scripture the next step is observation so observation this is where you’re actually focusing in on what’s standing out to you what are the things that
maybe God wants you to apply to your life or maybe things that God is nudging you in your spirit a little bit on and just really observing like how is this scripture playing in to where I’m currently at and what God wants me to do application this is where we actually write this is what I think the scripture is asking you to do or how I need to change my life or what I need to do in response to this this is kind of an action plan step for the A on actionable is actually making sure that you know what you’re going to do next because of
what you’ve read and observed and then the final step is prayer making sure that you spend time talking to God reaffirming your relationship and saying okay God this is what I think you want me to do this is what I’m going to do and this is how I’m going to act in obedience to how I feel like you have been prompting me through this time so those are the three acronyms that are really common and kind of beginner acronyms but there are different ways that you can actually Implement these so one might be in just a verbal time with
God uh just walking through that and talking you can do it in your car you can do it in the shower you can do it anywhere if you’re verbally processing those acronyms will just help you kind of walk through that process another way of doing it would be journaling where you’re writing it down and actually giving yourself time to process and meditate on the things that are showing up and setting a marker for you to actually remember what you’re going to God about in prayer and then being able to see how he is actually
responding to you another way uh that’s a little outside the box similar to journaling but a little bit different is Post-it prayers so if it feels overwhelming to have a big piece of paper or to have a journal and that’s just not your speed do Post-it prayers grab a set of Post-it notes and you can either one sentence it on there or each Post-it can be a different part of your acronym and you can stick those up next to your mirror is a common place or maybe it’s next to the doors you’re leaving and you can just remind
yourselves of okay this is what I’m praying through right now this is my acronym of prayer at this moment and it can just be a regular reminder as you pass by those notes every single time another way is kind of a scripture search so it would be that if you’re struggling to actually put word your own words to these different parts it would be going through scriptures and trying to find ways that other people have already prayed these and using their words Psalms is a great place to start it’s basically a book of prayers and
songs to God so you’re going to find a lot of these components throughout it but there are also other prayers in the Bible that maybe they’re speaking in a way or about things that matter to you and you can go through this The Lord’s Prayer is kind of one of those examples of ways to pray through things and using other people’s words you don’t want to only do that but sometimes it opens us up in ways that we may never have done on our own to use the words of people before us you could also go to older
books of prayer um from way back way back when in the 1400s and stuff and use some of those prayers to work through these different parts of the acronym and really being able to verbalize if maybe that’s not your strong suit and then my final recommendation if you’re wanting to kind of shake up your prayer life maybe use some of these acronyms and stuff is do lists uh if maybe you don’t feel like you have a whole sentence to say or you don’t really want to articulate through full comprehensive thought because of
whatever is going on in your life do lists either put the topic at the top and just write down one or two phrases or words to go along with them or you could do it kind of like scrap Scrabble or you could do it kind of like Scrabble yes Scrabble uh where you pick one letter and you’re trying to come up with the things for these different acronym pieces that fit the letter that you picked or you could do the alphabet and say I’m going to 26 all 26 letters come up with things that go along with these different sections for each letter of
the alphabet or you could say I’m going to come up with three things and just do number points or you could pick a person and say I’m going to come up with uh things to pray about that person that go along with the letters of their name or different ways of listing what you want to pray to help you kind of get out of a rut or just start in an easier manner of praying to God things that aren’t just about what is happening in this moment with you alone because the more that we open up about focusing all pieces of our
life on God the easier it is for us in those moments to focus on God so I hope all of this has been helpful to to just maybe grow deeper in your faith with Jesus whether you’re starting out or have been here for a while they’re all things I’ve used from time to time to grow deeper in my faith and get out of that kind of self-centered rut that sometimes I get to in my prayer life but I’d love for you to leave a comment tell me which thing are you going to give a try and make sure to like And subscribe
so you never miss a video I’ll see you next time weirdos