How To Pray Part One: When To Pray
July 6, 2025 – The 4th Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 9C
2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Galatians 6:1-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Do you ever feel like the constant barrage of bad news is pushing God out of your life? Where are we supposed to look for God in a world in which wars are waged without any sign of ceasing? Where is God to be found in a world in which the poor and vulnerable are repeatedly trampled upon by the rich and powerful? Where is God hiding in a world in which a flash food rages in the middle of the night and sweeps 27 little girls away, presumably to a terrible and terrifying death?
A part of us knows that somehow God is still here—still with us even though the headlines bring unrelenting news of insurmountable struggle—but it feels like that part of us is shrinking under the weight of the pain and grief which show no sign of abating. How do we hold onto God? How do we hold onto hope? How do we maintain any shred of confidence that God is still God and that one day God’s love will win? The answer is prayer.
Prayer gives life and energy to our faith. If God’s love is the foundation upon which our faith is built, prayer is the blueprint by which that faith takes shape. Prayer is how our relationship with God is enfleshed. It is the tool through God shapes us into the people God has created us to be. It is the channel through which God’s love takes hold of our lives and the world around us. It is the means by which the reign of God continues to grow and spread and push back against the forces of evil that dare to encroach upon it. It is the thing that keeps us anchored in God even and especially when life’s storms rage against us and against the people we love. But how many of us know how to pray?
Today, I am beginning a three-week sermon series on prayer because I believe that there is nothing more important for us to learn right now than how to pray. If you grew up in a mainline Protestant denomination like this one, there is a good chance that no one ever taught you how to pray. But all of us need to be taught. Those of us who were told that prayer is nothing more than speaking to God as if God were our friend probably gave up on prayer a long time ago. God is our friend, but prayer is more than pouring out our heart to a sympathetic ear.
Prayer is how we speak to God in the person of Jesus Christ. Prayer is how Jesus brings us into himself and speaks the needs of our hearts to God on our behalf. Prayer is Christ praying within us and us praying within him. It is the nexus—the crucible—in which our humble words become nothing less than the Word of God and, in turn, in which God’s Word becomes our words. Prayer is the means by which our entire lives are united to God as expressed in the beautiful words that Jesus taught us to say: Our Father. Prayer like that doesn’t happen by itself. The request that the disciples made of Jesus must become our request as well: “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Learning to pray is not a one-time experience. All of us, including preachers like me, need to learn again and again how to pray—how to grow in prayer. Although I have some experience and expertise to pass along, this sermon series is as much a shared exploration as a lesson from an expert, and I hope it will be valuable for all of us. This morning, I want to focus on the timing of prayer—the when of our prayer. Next week, I’ll explore the words that we are supposed to say—the what of our prayer. Finally, in the third week, I’ll talk about the purpose of prayer—the why of our prayer. Each week, I will use the psalm appointed for the day as the starting point for our exploration, and I hope to give you something practical that you can take home and try out as a way of learning how to pray. Now, let’s start with today’s psalm.
“I will exalt you, O Lord, because you have lifted me up.” With those words, the psalmist begins the thirtieth psalm, and we already hear in them an important lesson for the timing of prayer. The psalmist promises to exalt and praise God because of something God has already done. That is how all prayer begins—in response to God, the one in whom all things have their origin. In effect, all our prayers are prayed in hindsight—with gratitude for what God has done. Not every prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving, but prayer itself is a thank offering to God. The very fact that we can pray at all is a testament to God’s loving kindness.
Somewhere along the way, the psalmist’s personal prayer of thanksgiving became the prayer of the entire worshipping community. “Sing to the Lord, you faithful servants,” the psalmist bids the congregation. “Give thanks for the remembrance of God’s holiness.” The psalmist invites us to pray by inviting us to remember. Even if the saving work that we are asked to bring to mind is not a recollection of our own deliverance, God’s goodness, which is manifest throughout history, is reason enough for us to pray. It is the remembrance of God’s saving love that locates us and our prayers at a particular moment in salvation history. It is gratitude for what has been that brings us to the threshold of asking God for what will be.
Not every prayer is a joyful thanksgiving. The psalmist acknowledges that hardship comes even to those who are faithful: “While I felt secure, I said, ‘I shall never be disturbed. You, Lord, with your favor, made me as strong as the mountains.’ Then you hid your face, and I was filled with fear.” Even those who rightly attribute to God their strength and security are subject to pain, loss, and suffering. Things change. It feels like the God who was beside us all along has suddenly hidden Godself from us. In an instant, our feelings of invincibility give way to a tidal wave of inadequacy. Our prayers of thanksgiving become prayers of desperation. “Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me,” the psalmist prays, “O Lord, be my helper.”
But the psalmist also reminds us that the prayers we utter in our moments of deepest need are the channels through which our faith in God is maintained. “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit?” the psalmist pleads with God. “Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?” In effect, the psalmist is reminding himself that his life has value to God because his life is a song of praise. With whom are we really bargaining when we plead with God like that? Do we expect God to be convinced by our words, or are we really just convincing ourselves that, no matter what direction our life takes, its true purpose is found in glorifying God? Prayer, therefore, is how we remind ourselves that, no matter what happens, we belong to God.
Whenever we pray, therefore, our prayers inhabit that place where God’s eternal goodness becomes new all over again. “Weeping may spend the night,” the psalmist declares, “but joy comes in the morning.” Prayer must be a daily pursuit because every day is an opportunity for us to reclaim our place in the story of salvation—to reground ourselves in God’s loving kindness whether that day will bring joy or sorrow, celebration or hardship. When the psalmist says, “My heart sings to you without ceasing…I will give you thanks for ever,” he is not promising to inundate God with a cascade of incessant utterances but is recommitting himself to the practice of praising God every day of his life. That must be our commitment as well.
In short, prayer always happens at that moment when our gratitude for what is past brings us to a moment of need and then transforms that moment into a threshold for our participation in God’s love, which stretches out ahead of us. And prayer is what turns that particular moment into an unending place in which we dwell with God.
I want to invite you to try something this week: I want you to start every day with prayer. It doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be formal. It can be as simple as saying the Lord’s Prayer, or, if that feels like too much, you can just say, “O God, make speed to save me.” But whatever you say, I want your prayer to be the very first thing you do every day this week.
That sounds simple enough, but it is as deceptively difficult as it is subtly powerful. How many of you start your day by looking at your phone? When the first thing you do every morning is to look at the headlines or scroll through social media or glance at your calendar, you are allowing the noise of this world to push God away. When we start our day with something other than prayer, we place God in subjection to the demands of this life, when, in fact, our God is the Lord of all of them. Every headline, every post, every meme, every appointment, every meeting—our God reigns over them all.
Prayer every morning is how we learn to believe that. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer.” [1] Next week, I will talk more about what we are supposed to pray—what words we should use and why our words matter—but, for now, what matters is that we pray at all and that we start our day in prayer.
Tonight, before you go to sleep, decide how you will begin your day tomorrow with prayer. You can use the Lord’s Prayer, or you can simply say, “O God, make speed to save me.” You can take home your bulletin and recite the words of Psalm 30. If the first thing you typically reach for is your phone, make sure that the first screen you will see is a prayer that you can say. Tonight, you can Google “The Lord’s Prayer” or “Psalm 23” and leave that screen open as a reminder to begin your day with prayer. However you do it, decide to start each day with prayer, and you will soon discover a connection with God that follows you all day long. That connection is where life-changing faith begins, and it is upon that connection that we will build next week.
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1. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible. Augsburg Fortress Press; Minneapolis: 1970, 64.
© 2025 Evan D. Garner
