Prayer is not a performance and there is no password. Most people who have never prayed assume they are missing the technique, when in fact there is no technique to miss.
If you have never prayed, or have not prayed in years, here are five things worth knowing before you start. None of them take more than a minute to try, and you can try the first one on the bus.
01
Pray in your own words
You do not need set phrases and you do not need something learned by heart. What God listens to is the sincerity of your heart, so keep it simple. If the only honest sentence you have today is I do not know how to do this, start there: it counts.
02
Choose a place to pray
Pick a room, or a corner, or a bench, without particular distractions, so you can concentrate on God. This is not the goodnight prayer you said as a child. It is a calm moment to talk to Him, and to listen to Him. Yes, you read that right: prayer works in both directions.
03
Set a specific time
Treat it like an appointment and put God in your daily diary. Our tip: make it the priority rather than the leftover. Fifteen minutes at seven in the morning that actually happen beat an hour at midnight that never does.
04
Drop every preconception
Even if you do not feel like it, even if you are convinced God is too far away to bother with you, try anyway. The best answers are the unexpected ones, and they tend to arrive after the prayer you almost did not pray.
05
If it is written, it can happen
Your request is not too impossible for God. Read the miracles in the Bible not as folklore but as precedent, and let them give you the nerve to ask for the thing you have been editing down.
Praying with other people is easier than praying alone
Every Monday at 6.30am a group of us pray for London: for the people we work with, for the schools, for anyone who asked us to. You never have to pray out loud, and coffee is provided.