Probably one of the most difficult spiritual disciplines I face is the challenge of keeping my prayer life fresh and meaningful. It seems too easy to slip into a dull routine, praying the same prayers, or types of prayers, every day.

Once you fall into that rut, it can be difficult to pull yourself out of it. But if you want to experience a vivid and meaningful prayer life, you must do something to revitalize your prayers.

Building a vibrant prayer life isn’t as difficult as it seems. Of all the methods I’ve tried in my life, none of them has been difficult. The only difficulty I’ve experienced has been in my consistency in maintaining the habit. It’s easy to fall into a dulling routine, or to become complacent in your prayer life.

But when that happens, your spiritual health suffers as if you’d just been sealed away from the life-giving oxygen that we need to survive. The frightening part is that we may not even notice that we’ve drifted until the effects are drastic.

For that reason, it’s crucial that we develop and maintain the discipline of a healthy prayer life. Over the course of my life and ministry, I’ve discovered a few ways that have helped me to keep my perspective fresh. Hopefully, they will help you as well.

Pray Specifically

One of the best things you can do to bring life to your prayers is to pray with a specific focus. I carry a Field Notes Brand pocket journal with me everywhere I go, every day. This serves as a place to jot down reminders and tasks, but it is also a place where I keep my prayer list. I maintain a different list for each day of the week, seeking God’s direction for different aspects of my life, my family and my ministry each day. And I also keep a daily list, full of those needs that crop up daily.

When someone asks me to pray for them, I write it down in this booklet, and I pray frequently and specifically for that need. And I find that I can do it more often, simply because I’m reminded of it more often. With the details always in my pocket, I can pray very specifically as well.

I once heard a guy leading a worship seminar give an example of praying specifically, and it’s always stuck with me. He used the illustration of praying for God to bring a bass guitar player to your church, because your praise team needed one. You could just pray that God brings a bass guitarist. But wouldn’t you prefer one that was already a believer? One who was talented at playing? One that was committed to being a part of the team? One who showed up on time, every time?

Often, we get what we ask for, so ask specifically.

Experiment

A second way to rejuvenate your prayer life is to experiment a bit. Do you always pray at the kitchen table? Try praying in a different place, like the living room. Instead of speaking your prayers, write them in your journal instead. Pray with another person, either together or separately. If separate, make sure you coordinate your schedules so that you can be praying at the same time.  Try a different posture. If you usually sit in a chair, try standing or kneeling, or lie prone on the floor.

Not too long ago, our church faced a pretty rough financial situation. Our leadership team and several other key individuals maintained a prayer vigil for more than twenty-four hours, keeping a continuous stream of prayer lifted for our need. During my slot, I wandered through the empty church building, using the classrooms and the fellowship hall, the offices and the auditorium as a visible expression of what I was praying for.

Don’t be afraid to try new things to keep your prayer life from becoming stale.

Resist The Temptation To Give Up

Often, we get discouraged. Sometimes it’s because we don’t see the answers that we long for. Other times, it’s because it seems like we can’t find any spark of excitement in our prayers to keep us motivated. When we first got married, my wife admitted to me that she was frequently discouraged because she felt like she always fell asleep during her prayers, and never finished. After experimenting a bit, she found a time and a place that worked better.

Discouragement is a deceit from the enemy. And if he can keep you from praying, he can cause you to be completely ineffective. A good rule of thumb to consider is that if you are feeling discouraged or attacked, keep it up, because it’s making a difference.

Pray Through The Psalms

Scripture is a great place to turn for help with your prayers. In particular, the book of Psalms is highly encouraging and helpful. Throughout these pages, you will see the prayers of King David, and others, who cried out to God in joy and in distress, in fear and in love. The Psalms contain prayers that cover the entire range of human emotion, and it can be helpful to utilize them as prayers. In turn, they can spark your prayer life to greater depths.

Read Some Good Books On Prayer

There are some incredible books out there on the topic of prayer. While I don’t claim to know all the great ones, there are a few that have impacted my life. These include The Complete Works Of E. M. Bounds On Prayer, by E. M. Bounds; Let Prayer Change Your Life, by Becky Tirabassi; and Too Busy Not To Pray by Bill Hybels. There are more, and if there is one that you’ve found helpful, please share. I am always interested in reading more on this topic.

Ask, Seek, Knock

The Bible gives us some pretty simple instructions when it comes to prayer. Found in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ instructions concerning prayer reveal three imperatives and three promises.

Ask, and it will be given to you. Jesus wants us to ask. In fact, asking in itself demonstrates our faith, because when we ask, we expect God to give. The key is in learning to ask for the things that reflect the heart of God. But that is really simple to do. The more you pray, and ask, the more you will get to know him. The better you know him, the more you’ll become like him. And when you are like him, you will want the things that he wants. It’s really that easy.

Seek and you will find. Seeking is an active word. Seeking is not passive. What are we to be seeking? God’s will. When we search intently, through the Scriptures and through prayer, he promises that we will find. All too often, we seek our our answers, or if we do take it to God, we give him our suggestions. I am suggesting that we be ready and willing to hear God suggest a different possibility than any we may have considered.

Knock and the door will be opened to you. Jesus concludes his statement on prayer with a third element that draws a vivid picture in our minds. If we knock, he says, the door will be opened. God expects us to be persistent in prayer. God expects us to continue knocking. If we do, he tells us that the door will be opened. What he doesn’t tell us is when it will be opened. It may be opened right away. Or it may take some time. Either way, we are to continue knocking.

These are just a few ways to rejuvenate your prayer life. There are undoubtedly as many more ways as there are people seeking a vibrant prayer life.

But the key is to continue to work at making your prayer life as healthy as possible. Why? The book of James gives us the answer.

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. – James 5:16b

Prayer is powerful. It is direct communication with God, and it has the power to change God’s mind. God listens to us, and he responds. And the more we reflect his heart, the greater effect we will experience in our prayer lives.

My encouragement to you is to establish some habits today that will help you build your prayer life into a healthy, vibrant relationship with God. And as you grow in that relationship, you’ll be blown away by the love and growth you’ll experience.

What do you do to keep your prayer life vibrant and fresh? You can share your thoughts in the comment section below.