The Easiest Way to Get Into Deeper Prayer

Prayer, often perceived as rigid or complex, can be understood as a river with many streams. By identifying these different streams, believers can learn to discern the flow of the Holy Spirit and cooperate with divine guidance, leading to a natural and powerful prayer life. This cooperation moves the believer beyond wandering and floundering into deeper depths of connection with God.

The sources outline seven essential realms, or streams, of prayer that facilitate a powerful and flowing relationship with God.

1. Adoration: Worship as the Foundation

Adoration is the worship of God. This stream is crucial because it helps believers get “unstuck” and move with the Spirit, lifting the heart to a heavenly realm. Worship acts like a spiritual tool, cutting away the “tethers connecting you to the earthly”.

• Worship is a Response to Revelation: True worship is a response to revelation. Angels circling the throne room constantly cry “Holy holy holy” because they are perpetually capturing new glimpses of God they hadn’t seen before.
• Truth and the Holy Spirit: Revelation is formed when the Holy Spirit takes a truth regarding the Lord and breathes on it, causing worship to erupt from deep within the heart.
• Flowing Naturally: Adoration can flow naturally, manifesting as a desire to sing, praise, thank God, or simply cry out, “Jesus, I love you, I worship you”. This attention on God is a form of prayer because it involves connection, communion, relation, and communication.
• Preparing the Heart: Worship helps to break up the tough soil in the heart, moving the believer forward in prayer.

2. Supplication: Asking God for Needs

Supplication is the act of bringing prayer requests to God, asking Him to meet needs, provide miracles, or give guidance.

• Pray Instead of Worry: The instruction is to “don’t worry about anything”. Instead, believers are told to “pray about everything” because you can either worry or pray; you can’t do both.
• Worry is Counterfeit Prayer: Worry is described as the flesh’s powerless counterfeit for prayer, a useless attempt at control that achieves nothing.
• Ask Boldly: It is good to bring your prayer requests to God. The sources dispel the misconception that asking for things like a job, a car, or prosperity takes supply away from those who are starving or persecuted. It is “silly” to imagine God is running short on supply.
• Gratitude and Peace: Supplication involves two instructions: tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. This combination leads to experiencing the peace of God, which exceeds anything we can understand, guarding the heart and mind.

3. Confrontation: Spiritual Warfare

Confrontation is spiritual warfare against actual, sentient, conscious beings (demons) who speak, strategize, and attack believers and their families.

• Balancing Awareness: Believers must be aware of the spiritual battle but must maintain balance. Some are so carnal they scoff at the idea of demonic beings, while others are so paranoid that they forget who lives in them.
• Submission Precedes Resistance: The command is simple: “Submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil, and he will flee”. If the devil is not fleeing, it may be because the believer is not submitted.
• Authority in Christ: When a believer resists the devil, it is not done in their own authority but in the authority of Christ. Submission places the believer in Christ, enabling them to represent heavenly authority so that the devil flees, he does not fight.
• Discerning Demonic Attacks: Believers should not be afraid to acknowledge and “call out” when a situation is a spiritual attack. Examples include rebuking drug addiction, anxiety, depression, or confusion in the name of Jesus.
• The Watchman’s Role: God places believers as a watchman on a post to pray against the influence of the enemy. This is reflected in the Lord’s Prayer, which asks God to “deliver us from the evil one”.

4. Contrition: Repentance and Renewal

Contrition is repentance, which involves constantly changing your mind for the better. While initial repentance saves a person, continued repentance is necessary for everyday practical living.

• Guarding Against Compromise: Contrition keeps the heart soft toward God and prevents compromise from hardening the heart. Little compromises can slowly eat away at spiritual fire, allowing old habits and mindsets to return.
• The Need for Forgiveness: Jesus instructed the church to pray, “forgive us our sins”. Furthermore, 1 John 1:9 confirms that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us, indicating a consistent need for requesting forgiveness.
• Quick Response to Conviction: Contrition requires quickly responding to the conviction (or grieving) of the Holy Spirit, acknowledging wrong attitudes or thoughts and asking for help to remove them. The goal is not to wallow in misery but to operate in the new nature.

5. Meditation: Fueling Prayer with the Word

Meditation involves meditating on the Word of God. The Word provides fuel for prayer.

• The Benefits of Meditation: Those who delight in the Law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night, are promised to be like trees planted along a riverbank, bearing fruit each season and prospering in all they do.
• Repetition in Thought: Meditation is repetition in thought, often involving vocalizing Scripture. The Word moves from merely being read and forgotten to being contemplated until it causes a shift in desire and prayer.
• Substance and Depth: The Word gives substance to prayers and puts weight behind them. The depth in a person’s prayer can be heard when there is a deep internalization of the Word.

6. Intercession: Praying for Others

Intercession is the act of praying for all people, asking God to help them, interceding on their behalf, and giving thanks for them.

• Making a Difference: Your prayers for others are making a difference, even when you do not feel like it or see immediate results.
• Contradicting Reality: Faith does not deny reality; it changes it. When interceding, believers must learn to see through the eyes of faith, even if the person being prayed for seems to be getting worse or becoming more hostile to the Gospel.
• Standing in the Gap: Intercession requires the believer to stand in the gap and pray for their loved ones. Many believers today are saved because somebody prayed for them. If you did not have a praying ancestor, you can be the first in your generations, planting seeds for the future.

7. Appreciation: Thanksgiving and Faith

Appreciation is thanksgiving, which acts like the “send button” on your prayers. Gratitude is the act of already thanking God for the answer.

• The Power of Gratitude: Believers should ask God for what they need (healing, deliverance, salvation) and then thank Him that they have received it.
• Producing Faith and Hope: This practice requires visualizing the desired outcome—such as picturing loved ones sitting at the Thanksgiving table or preaching the Gospel—and letting that thanksgiving produce faith and hope bursting out of your heart.
• Seizing the Promise: When believers see the miracle through thankful anticipation, they seize what God has for them.

These seven streams teach believers to flow with the Holy Spirit, making prayer less rigid and leading them into deeper depths of communion with God.