If prayer unlocks our intimacy with God, why don't we use it more? Prayer is a practice with God, not a performance. The more we practice our prayer, the more natural our conversation with God will be. Prayer requires confidence in God and consistent discipline. Try practicing *breath prayer,* which reminds us we can't live on one single breath of God; we need to breathe God in all day long.
Thanksgiving focuses on *what God has done.* Praise focuses on *who God is.* **Thanking God + Praising God = Gratitude**. Gratitude helps reframe and refocus the way we see our lives. Thanksgiving and praise can weave all of the pieces of our lives together: the sad pieces, the hard pieces, the h...
Our sin gets in the way of our communication with God. The prayer of repentance includes both confession of the sin and rejection or renouncing of the sin: *I'm really sorry for what I did, and I won't do it again.* Forgiveness is the fruit of repentance. We are all in need of receiving and exten...
We can lose heart before even trying to pray a prayer of request, when we don't have confidence that God will do what he says he will do. But our requests need to be rooted in our desire to please God, not in our desire to please ourselves. Prayers of request require a heart right with God, so yo...