How to Pray When You Don’t Know What to Say
I probably shouldn’t be the person writing an article about prayer. At least that’s how I feel right now.
Prayer is something I’m struggling with. Enough that this past weekend I spent more than three hours reading about prayer and probably another three hours thinking about it, studying Scripture, and trying to understand why something that should be such a natural part of the Christian life can sometimes feel so difficult.
After all that reading and thinking, I wish I could tell you I figured it out. I haven’t. I don’t have a new prayer formula, and I haven’t discovered five easy steps guaranteed to transform your prayer life. In fact, I probably have more questions about prayer now than I did when I started.
But I did come away with one thought that has changed the way I’m beginning to think about prayer.
And it started when I thought about Wendy.
Why Did We Talk So Much?
Wendy and I came from two completely different worlds. She grew up in Pennsylvania, while I grew up in Texas. Until we met in the choir room at our church, we had never spoken to one another. We didn’t grow up together, share childhood memories, or know each other’s families and stories. We knew virtually nothing about each other.
About a month after we met, I finally worked up the courage to ask her out. After our first date, we started talking—and talking and talking. We would spend hours talking to each other every day.
Why?
Because we wanted to know each other.
I wanted to know what Wendy thought, what her childhood had been like, what made her laugh, what mattered to her, and what she hoped for in life. She wanted to know those things about me too.
There wasn’t a formula for those conversations. I didn’t carry around a list of approved topics for talking to Wendy or worry about whether our conversations were long enough. There certainly wasn’t a checklist to make sure I had said everything in the proper order.
I just wanted to talk to her because I was falling in love with her.
Conversation wasn’t something we did simply because we had a relationship. Conversation was one of the ways our relationship grew.
As I’ve thought about prayer this weekend, I’ve begun to wonder if I’ve made talking with God much more complicated than it needs to be.
Thirty-Three Years of Talking
Wendy and I were together for 33 years and married for 32 of them. As best as I can remember, there were only three days during all those years when we didn’t speak to each other, and that was because I was in Canada without cell service.
That’s it. Three days in 33 years.
We didn’t talk every day because marriage came with a rule requiring us to have a certain number of minutes of conversation. We talked because we loved each other.
Even after 10 years, I still wanted to talk to her. Twenty years didn’t change that, and neither did 30. There was never a point when I thought, Well, I know Wendy pretty well now. I guess we don’t need to talk anymore.
Our relationship kept growing, and conversation remained part of that relationship.
That realization has caused me to ask myself a difficult question: Why have I sometimes treated prayer so differently?
Maybe I’ve Been Thinking About Prayer Backwards
When Christians talk about prayer, we often start with the mechanics. How long should I pray? When should I pray? Should I pray in the morning or at night? What should I pray about? Should I follow a particular prayer model, keep a prayer list, or pray out loud?
Those aren’t bad questions. Some of them are questions I’m asking myself right now.
But maybe they’re not the first question.
Maybe the first question should be: Who am I talking to?
Prayer isn’t primarily about learning how to perform a Christian discipline correctly. It’s communication with God, and it’s part of how we grow in our relationship with Him.
When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, look at how He told them to begin:
“Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.” — Matthew 6:9 (CSB)
Our Father.
Those two words have taken on a deeper meaning for me as I’ve thought about prayer.
I Didn’t Understand Fathers Until I Became One
My father died when I was four years old. Because of that, I grew up without really knowing what it was like to have an earthly father in my everyday life.
Of course, I knew what a father was. But knowing the definition of father and experiencing that relationship are two different things.
That changed when I became a father myself.
Suddenly, I understood something I hadn’t experienced growing up. I wanted my children to talk to me and wanted to know what was happening in their lives. When they had a problem, I wanted them to come to me. If they needed advice or wisdom, I wanted them to ask. When they were hurting, I wanted to know about it, and when something wonderful happened, I wanted them to tell me about that too.
They didn’t need an appointment or the right words.
They were my children.
Jesus used that very relationship to teach us something about God:
“Who among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.” — Matthew 7:9–11 (CSB)
I never wanted to give my children something evil. I gave them what I had, and when I could, I gave willingly and abundantly.
Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father is infinitely better than we are. Understanding that makes me think differently about prayer.
What Does Our Heavenly Father Want?
Maybe prayer begins with understanding that God actually wants His children to come to Him. He wants us to seek His wisdom, ask for His help, confess our sins, bring our fears to Him, thank Him for what He has done, and trust Him with the things we cannot control.
Most importantly, we don’t have to clean everything up before we start talking.
That’s important when you’re wondering how to pray when you don’t know what to say. Maybe you don’t need to figure out the perfect words. You could simply start with two:
“Father, I…”
Then tell Him the truth.
Maybe it’s, “Father, I’m scared.” Another day it might be, “Father, I’m angry,” “Father, I don’t understand,” or “Father, I messed up.” There will also be days when it’s simply, “Father, thank You,” or “Father, I need help.”
And perhaps some days the most honest prayer you can offer is:
“Father, I don’t know what to say today. But I want to know You better.”
That’s a prayer.
But Relationships Require Listening Too
There is one obvious weakness in comparing prayer to my conversations with Wendy: Wendy talked back.
If I had spent 33 years talking at her without ever listening to her, I doubt we would have had much of a marriage. Relationships require communication in both directions, and our relationship with God is no exception.
Prayer is how we speak to God, while Scripture is where God has spoken to us. That’s why prayer and Scripture belong together.
We can’t say we desperately want to know God while ignoring what He has told us about Himself. When we open the Bible, we discover His character. Scripture shows us what He loves, what He hates, what He has done, what He promises, and what He wants for His children.
Then we can talk with Him about what we’re learning.
Maybe prayer and Bible reading were never supposed to be two separate boxes on our Christian checklist. Perhaps they’re both part of growing in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
What If You Don’t Feel Like Praying?
This is where I have to be careful, because I could easily write something that sounds good but doesn’t honestly describe where I am.
I’m struggling with this.
If I loved talking to Wendy because I loved Wendy, what does it say when talking to God sometimes feels like an obligation? That’s not a comfortable question for me to ask myself, but I think it’s an important one.
I don’t believe the answer is to pretend the struggle doesn’t exist. I’m also increasingly unconvinced that the solution is simply to grit my teeth and become more disciplined.
Maybe the struggle itself needs to become part of my prayer:
“Father, I know I should want to talk to You more than I do. Please help me desire You.”
That’s an honest prayer, and maybe honesty is a better place to begin than pretending.
The Bible even tells us there will be times when we don’t know how to pray:
“In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.” — Romans 8:26 (CSB)
Apparently, not knowing what to say doesn’t disqualify us from prayer. God already knows our weakness.
So How Do You Pray When You Don’t Know What to Say?
After hours of reading about prayer this weekend, my answer is much simpler than when I started:
Talk to your Father.
You don’t have to impress Him, use church words, sound like your pastor, or pray like the person sitting beside you in Sunday School. Just talk to Him.
Tell Him what’s happening and what you’re afraid of. Share what you’re excited about. Ask questions, seek wisdom, request help, and thank Him for what He’s done. When you’ve sinned, confess it. If you’re disappointed or don’t understand what He’s doing, tell Him that too.
When you don’t know what to say, you can even tell Him that.
Then open His Word and listen to what He has already said. Come back tomorrow and do it again. Continue the next day and the day after that.
Not because you’re trying to complete your Christian prayer requirement, but because you’re getting to know your Father.
I Still Have a Lot to Learn About Prayer
I’m not writing this because I’ve figured prayer out. I haven’t.
Instead, I’m writing because I’m beginning to suspect that I’ve spent too much time trying to understand how to pray before fully understanding why I pray.
I pray because I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and because I want to know Him. I need His wisdom and His help, and I want my relationship with Him to continue to grow.
For 33 years, I talked with Wendy because I loved her, and 33 years wasn’t enough. There were still things I wanted to talk about, things I wanted to hear, conversations I wanted to have, and experiences I wanted us to share.
Death interrupted those conversations, but it didn’t end our story.
Because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross and through His resurrection, death doesn’t get the final word.
I will have eternity to continue my relationship with Wendy and with God, thanks to what Jesus did on the cross and through the resurrection.
Until then, I want to keep getting to know my Heavenly Father, one conversation at a time.
Continue the Start at Home Journey
This post is part of our Start at Home series, where we’re looking at God’s blueprint for changing a broken world—and why that change begins with us and then moves into our families, churches, and communities.
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