Prayer A to Z

Our Greatest Gift

Posted on November 27, 2025 by Stephen Nielsen

There is no better thing we can do on Thanksgiving Day than to look up to heaven and begin thanking God for His great love to us—for giving us His only Son, that he would die on the cross in order that we may have eternal life.

John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

This is our great prize from heaven. There is no better gift. Our joy and thanksgiving overflows on this day. All other things we are thankful for pale in comparison to that great gift. Nonetheless, with hearts full already, with eternity awaiting, we thank God for all other good things. His basket of gifts fills our life. Our joy overflows.

Prepare for Prayer

Posted on September 6, 2025 by Stephen Nielsen

How to Prepare Your Heart for Prayer

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Stephen Nielsen

Here is step three of six on how to have an extended prayer time. The entire title of this third step is…

Know How to Prepare Your Heart for Prayer and How to Respond to God’s Call to Pray

As I see it, there are basically only two things to do in an extended time of prayer: wait on God, and respond to His call to pray. But it is crucial that you do it in that order. If you just mechanically begin to pray for all your needs without waiting on God to direct you, you will be going against the Holy Spirit and will soon become frustrated. So first wait on God and listen to Him. He will tell you what to do and in what order. He is the master of prayer. You are His disciple and servant (Read Isaiah 50:4).

Waiting on God begins even before you get to your place of prayer. Waiting on God isn’t really an activity; it is a mood, or a frame of mind. It is being an obedient listener. This obedient, listening mood is something you should try to maintain throughout your time of prayer. But at the beginning of your time you will want to make an effort to establish it. Therefore, you should try to put aside your own selfish desires and focus on God and on what He wants to tell you and show you.

In order to establish this listening mood a good thing to do is go for a walk, or a boat ride, or maybe a drive in the country. As you go, pray that God will give you a listening ear. At some point along the way, stop and read and meditate on a passage in the Bible. And if the Spirit leads you, sing to Him and praise Him. You may also want to just sit and look up into the sky or into the trees, or on the water. I love sitting by a lake or a stream. It always seems so comforting. The moving of the water and the tree branches and the grass symbolizes to me the moving of the Holy Spirit. When I see the effects of the wind all around me I am assured by God that He is there and working. That is always so comforting to me. There are so many ways we can see God in nature. I hope you take advantage of it and let God touch you and come near you.

As you walk and sing and meditate on the Word and pray and observe things around you while listening to the Holy Spirit, at some point He will call you to more serious prayer. He may also call you to repentance and purity. He may push you down on your knees and even on your face in repentance. If you feel this don’t resist. It is the Holy Spirit working on your heart to get you ready for prayer. At that point confess whatever sins come to your mind. Tell God whatever is on your heart.

After you have confessed your sins and cried, you may feel some relief and a lightness of heart. He has cleansed and forgiven you (1Jn. 1:9). At this point you may feel that the time of prayer is over, that God has touched you and healed you and prayer is no longer needed. But your prayer time is just beginning! He has broken you down, made you repent, and cleansed your heart to prepare you for prayer—for serious prayer! Don’t give up now! Stick with it!

You must continue to wait on God until you feel a burden for prayer, or rather a burden to pray for specific things. Wait on Him patiently and He will show you exactly what He wants you to pray for.

If you feel some tug at your heart to pray, but for nothing specific, I would suggest starting your prayer time by reading some of the Psalms (you may want to have some passages picked out ahead of time). As you read and meditate on them, also pray over them, and let them become your own prayers—for the Psalms, and all of Scripture, are the Word of God; God will use them to form your prayers. Also, if you feel like singing and praising Him, by all means do it. Don’t hinder the Holy Spirit in any way. Continue in praise and singing as long as the Spirit leads you.

At some point the Spirit will lead you to pray for something or someone in particular. He will put a burden on your heart for them. Pray right then without delay! You may want to write things down as they come to you so that you have a record of what God led you to pray for. Don’t be concerned about the order that things come to you in, even if you find that you are praying mostly for yourself or mostly for one particular person. Just pray as the Spirit leads you.

As you are praying for yourself, God may show you some things about yourself that you may want to consider and change. I would suggest having a notebook handy to write those things down. After your prayer time comes to an end, take the time to go over everything God has showed you and begin to apply those things.

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Extended Prayer Times

Posted on September 5, 2025 by Stephen Nielsen

Let’s say you agree that you need more prayer; that it would be good to have some extended, special prayer time. How do you go about it? Here are six steps to follow:

1. Establish personal reasons and begin to form some ideas.

In a previous blog we have already discussed some very good reasons why extended prayer times are necessary. But each of us ought also to have personal reasons. And then, from those we can start thinking about what type of special prayer is needed.

So first of all, let us search our heart to find out where we are at and what we need. Or maybe we don’t know what we need; that is the problem and we require answers. At any rate, the first thing to do is to set some goals. If you can’t think of what you really need or what God desires of you, just set some very general goals like: to see God and His ways; or, for God to show me what He wants me to do.

But perhaps you do have some very specific goals. You may want to hear from God concerning your vocation or a college to attend. You may need guidance concerning a mate. Or maybe your goal is just to have more time to pray for your children or for some friends.

Now, in accordance with your personal reasons for prayer, you should be able to come up with some ideas about what this special prayer time should look like. Here are two things to consider: the amount of time you require in prayer, and the place of prayer. I would suggest a time of at least two or three hours. To be classified as special prayer you need at least that long (but that’s up to you). If you think you have a lot more to pray about, or if it will take longer to meet your goals, you may want to plan for a whole day; or maybe, if you can find the time, for a whole week. Wouldn’t that be great!

For the two or three hour plan I would suggest a walk in the park, or maybe spend the time in a boat (but that’s up to you). If you have your heart set on a week, I think a cabin in the woods would be ideal—or a cabin on a lake, with a boat! You may want to think also about having regular extended prayer times, and to start thinking about how often you would want to have them.

2. Set the time and place.

It is not enough to think about and set goals for prayer. You must actually start making your plans, set the time and place, and make the necessary arrangements. If you want to spend a week in prayer at a cabin, you will need to make the arrangements to make sure you can get the cabin. And you should also make sure you can get a week off from work. I really like the idea of planning regular times of special prayer, whether it’s once a month, every 6 months, or once a year. It will be something for you to look forward to. Write those dates on your calendar. Give special priority to those times.

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Special Prayer Times

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Stephen Nielsen

We All Need Special Prayer Times

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Stephen Nielsen

Prayer ought to be regular and daily. We need prayer every day like we need daily meals and daily sleep. But just as a car requires an oil change and a tune up once in a while, it is essential for every Christian to also have extended, special prayer times so that he can take a longer, deeper look at God and at himself—in order to tune up his life. Daily prayers are good and necessary to prepare us for each day and to guide us through the day. But sometimes we get in a rut. We do things just out of habit. We pray the same old way. We ask God for the same things. We take the same amount of time to pray, at the same time of the day, in the same place. Prayer sometimes gets to be a drag, and we wonder if we should do something different. We even wonder if we are praying in the Spirit, or if we are just praying the same words that we always pray out of habit.

An extended prayer time will help. It will help you to see God clearer and to better know His ways and His will. It will help you to get a better look at yourself, to see if you are going in His direction. It will be a time to look to God for refreshment and rest. It will also be a time to catch up on prayer. An extended time will give you the required time to pray for all the things that you had wanted to pray for but just couldn’t seem to find the time. Yes, it will be a time to really labor in prayer—and out of it will come refreshment.

I have found that the more I pray and really work at prayer, the more I am refreshed and at peace. That is because when we pray and trust God for everything (for every little thing) He assures us by His Spirit that He has heard our prayers and that He will take care of us. This peace (assurance) we feel in prayer is the Holy Spirit working in us, keeping us strong and protecting our hearts from doubts and fears. (Doubts and fears are normal for us in our unredeemed flesh, but they are also from the devil; many of the fiery darts talked about in Ephesians 6:16 I think are darts of anxiety and fear, which the devil and his demons are constantly throwing at us.)

These things can be overcome by much prayer. By prayer we build up our faith. By much prayer God comes to our aid and puts up around us a protecting shield of faith and peace. Philippians 4:6 and 7 says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving , let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Okay, let’s say you agree that you need more prayer; that it would be good to have some extended, special prayer time. How do you go about it? In the next few posts I will give you some ideas.

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Pray with Sincerity, Part 3

Posted on August 29, 2025 by Stephen Nielsen

7 Ways to Pray With Sincerity – Part 3

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Prayer with Sincerity, part 2

Posted on August 18, 2025 by Stephen Nielsen

Posted on June 15, 2017 by Stephen Nielsen

Sincere prayer is without hypocrisy, or without putting on a show for others and without pretending to be something we are not (Matt. 6:5). Sincere prayer is honest, open, authentic, and transparent. This kind of prayer is so important if we want to grow in our relationship with God. I have put together seven ways we can practice being sincere in prayer. Here is the second installment, which is the third and fourth point.

3. Bring desires into full bloom. When God gives you desire in prayer, don’t squelch it by filling your mind with other things. Keep at the work of prayer; keep thinking about what God is showing you; keep at the conversation. Don’t look away or change the subject. Stay in tune with Him; stay alert with Him. When He loves you, love Him back. If we don’t, love is lost and sincerity in prayer is lost. True, sincere prayer always demands reciprocation. And if there is none, then prayer becomes nothing more than unheeded speech or a one-way conversation.

If our heart is not totally for God and if we do not return the desires He has for us—that is, if our desire is divided, desiring Him a little and something else a little—then it is impossible to be sincere with God in prayer, because in fact we are not honest with Him. Our desire for other things makes us disloyal to God and a hypocrite in prayer. And when we pray in this state, our sight and understanding of God is foggy and we can’t have real passion for Him.

If you want to have true, sincere prayer; if you want to really get to know God and have a clear vision of Him, you must keep the fire of desire burning and the beauty of desire growing. Just as a rose starts as a small bud and blooms into a beautiful flower, we must allow desire to grow into its full bloom. Only then will we be able to experience the fullness of God in prayer (Eph. 3:19).

4. Submit to God and resist the devil. The answer to wrong desires and divided desires is humility. If we find pride in ourselves and that we have given ourselves more to the world and to our pleasures then we must turn ourselves around and submit to God. If we don’t, we will never find Him or experience sincere prayer—for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Ja. 4:6).

At the same time we must also resist the devil and the lure sin. We can’t submit to what is good unless we resist what is evil.

So how do we do this? What are the actions of humility and resisting? Pray? Yes! But more than pray. Our prayers must be accompanied by some actions of humility that will purify our hearts. I suggest long periods of prayer with fasting and reflection. During this time, read and study the Bible much, and set your heart and mind to obey the Spirit in everything. He will no doubt lead you to confess your sins to Him and to others you have wronged. And when you make your confessions, make sure your heart is right. True confession and humility must be without a trace of frivolity or hypocrisy. James says, “Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up” (Ja. 4:8-10).