The discipline of Prayer puts us in proximity to God to dialogue with Him. Through prayer, we lean into our Father who desires to speak to us and hear from us. Jesus himself set the model for what and how to pray to God. We bring praise for who He is, thanksgiving for what He’s done, confess our wrongdoings, receive forgiveness and ask for Him to supply our needs. In prayer, we hear from God and pour out our hearts to Him.

To encourage us to practice the prayer discipline, we asked some of our FF family to share with us how they pray. May you be encouraged by the ways they practice this discipline and maybe even be inspired to practice in a similar way. No matter what, our prayer is that you would take time listening to God, diving deeper into your relationship with Him as we practice this discipline together.

“Prayer for me seems to have taken shape into a few forms from day-to-day or by month. Breath prayers during morning yoga, the scattered things that come to mind on my walks, prayer lists in my Moleskine Volant Journal (extra small is the best), specific prayer for specific people at specific times, A.C.T.S. , and I often find myself coming back to The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 to bring me back to center. All these methods have their way of adapting to the ebb and flow of my daily routine.

Inevitably I find myself feeling inadequate either in my words, wandering mind, or even how determined I feel in my prayer. When I feel this way, Paul’s words come to mind in Romans 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” I have my share of guttural groanings and weakness when praying. I’m grateful for The Spirit Himself. Sometimes I wish I could hear what He tells Our Father on my behalf.” –Josh Freeman

“I loved Jenni’s teaching on prayer this past Sunday. One of the reminders to me was that prayer, like all spiritual disciplines, should bring me to a point of worship. But honestly, sometimes I feel like I talk “at” God instead of to Him or with Him. That isn’t really building a relationship with Him. If I only talked “at” my husband Randy, without taking the time to listen to what he says to me, we wouldn’t have much of a relationship. We wouldn’t be able to grow together. So, as I pray and talk with God, I’m learning to stop, wait and listen for what He wants to say to me.” –Sheri Moody

“When it comes to prayer, writing has been my best friend. I find it tough to articulate my thoughts just sitting and trying to “think” them out. So instead, my practice has been to open my journal and Scripture and write my thoughts out to God, pray over passages and open up everything going on in me. They are basically a bunch of letters to God, asking Him to help me live out what I see in the Bible. It’s been a helpful tool through all of life’s ups and downs; I like to recount His character through praise & gratitude and put myself in a spot of recognizing I’m His child and creation. This can be a challenging habit to keep up with, and in some seasons I’m more consistent than others. But I’ve been doing it for over a decade now and have collected volumes of notebooks where I’ve just poured out to God. I also have a prayer app on my phone called Echo that I use to intercede for the folks in my life when I’m on the go.” –Brandon Spring