This morning I woke up earlier than I had set my alarm for. And while it is Saturday, and generally the idea is that we should sleep in on Saturday’s, I chose to get up. I followed my normal morning routine of letting the dog out and feeding him, making my coffee, and sitting down at my desk to spend time in God’s Word to start my day. Afterwards, I took my coffee outside to my back porch and sat on my porch swing while I spent time praying.

I have a list of prayer requests that I prayed through. It includes people in my life that I pray over regularly, seeking guidance in different ares and situations of my life, and different requests that I have…some of which I even have labeled as Bold/Big. I like to have a list as it helps me to focus, as well as keep track both what I’m praying for and how God has answered prayers. This is a discipline I began several years ago, and I’ve really been thankful that I did because it has really helped to enhance my prayer life.

This morning as I came to the end of my list, I felt as though something was missing. And then I remembered back to the lesson I shared with my students this past week about prayer.

This past Wednesday, we had spent time looking at several different verses that talk about prayer. I shared with the students that often we can be confused as to the why and how of prayer. We know we should pray, we talk about it often in church and youth group, but until we learn the why and how, it can be confusing. So they spent some time in their small groups reading a handful of verses and talking about what they show us regarding the importance of prayer (Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16, and Matthew 14:23), as well as different elements to include in prayer as well as some benefits we can receive from praying (Philippians 4:6-7, James 1:5). I told them that these verses were not all inclusive in terms of all that God’s Word tells us about prayer, and I gave them several more verses to read on their own so they could continue to learn beyond our time in youth group.

To wrap up youth group and talking about prayer as a large group, I took them to The Lords Prayer.

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Matthew 6:9-13

We read through it together, and I highlighted each piece of it in terms of a blueprint that Jesus was giving his disciples regarding how to pray. We talked about each verse, discussing what each statement meant and how we can use this blueprint in our own prayer today. I shared a slide with them to help them see how they could use this to help them pray. After that I also shared a couple other examples of blueprints for prayer that others have also created based on what scripture teaches us regarding prayer. They were not mine, I found them online, but I wanted to give my students a few different examples and resources to help them develop in their prayer life.

I wrapped it up by sharing that all the different examples we see, from the Lords Supper to the other one’s I found online (I will share them below), they all emphasized the importance of focusing on God; praising him, glorifying him, honoring him, and thanking him. In fact, that came before asking him for anything.

This morning, as I wrapped up going through my prayer list, I remembered what we had talked about and what I had shared with the students, and I realized I had missed that this morning. I had jumped straight into going through my list of requests. And while nothing I was praying for was wrong, I missed out on the importance of beginning by focusing myself on God; praising him for who he is and what he has done for me, glorifying him for being a good God, and thanking him for all the ways he has blessed me and been with me in this life.

I needed that. We all need that. We can so easily get caught up in all that we want or need or are asking for, that it’s easy to forget all he has done and blessed us with already. We can so quickly move to asking him for help with all that we have going on that we forget to center ourself on the fact that we are speaking to the creator of this universe, and our savior! He deserves to be honored and glorified and thanked, before we begin to ask him for things on our heart.

So the next time you pray, don’t forget to thank God. Do it first. Do it often. Praise for being a good God, glorify him because he is worthy of it, and thank him for all that he has done for you already!

To God be ALL THE GLORY!

Below are the different blueprints for prayer that I shared with my students. The first one is based on The Lord’s Prayer, and other two are one’s I found on google.