The Most Awkward, Important Part of Prayer

Does prayer come easily to you? It doesn’t always come easily to me.

I must not be the only one, because there are a few different prayer models out there to help us when our thoughts are tied up in knots, our minds are blank, or we simply don’t know what to say to God.

Now, before you say, “I don’t want to use a model for prayer. I just want to pray from my heart,” don’t forget that Jesus himself gave us a model for prayer. He knew that prayer wouldn’t always come easily to God’s children, and in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), he gave us a prayer that many Christians call The Lord’s Prayer:

Even though we likely have this prayer memorized (please do, if you haven’t already!), we instinctively know that God loves to hear from us in other, more personal ways, as well. So yes, sometimes we just wing it and open up from our hearts, which I’m sure is pleasing to God. But, as Jesus showed us, and as 150 Psalms (songs, prayers) show us, using a model for prayer is also pleasing to God and can be quite useful as we pray our way through our hopefully many decades of daily conversation with the Lord.

Many years ago, when I was searching for a way to make my prayer life more meaningful, I learned about the ACTS prayer model: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. This model has been around since at least the late 1800s, and is very loosely based on the Lord’s Prayer: first, you praise God for who he is (Adoration); then you Confess your sins and ask for forgiveness; then you Thank God for the blessings he has given to you; then, finally, you petition him (Supplication) with “asking” prayers for yourself or for others.

Those four elements of prayer—Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication—often find their way even into informal, “winging it” kinds of prayers in one way or another. We intuitively approach our Father with these things in mind … well, three of them, at least.

The Most Awkward Part of Prayer

If you find yourself skipping a certain element of prayer—Adoration/praise, Confession, Thanksgiving, or Supplication/asking—which one of these is it likely to be? Which one is the most awkward for you? Which one might you find yourself thinking, “I’m not sure exactly what to say here,” and shortening or eliminating that part?

I’m going to wager that it’s the first part: Adoration. The part where you come before the Lord with praise for who he is. Where you acknowledge one or more of his attributes. Sometimes we sort of tie this part in with Thanksgiving (“thank you for your goodness to me when you…”). The difference with Adoration is that instead of thanking him for something he’s done for us, we simply praise him for an aspect of his being, and give glory to his holy name.

I think Adoration can be awkward for us for two reasons: one is that we don’t know God as well as we ought. You get to know someone by spending a lot of time with them, by studying them and “learning” them through and through. If we don’t spend a lot of time with God and learning about God, it’s hard to know how to praise or adore him when we pray.

The other reason is that Adoration really doesn’t have anything to do with us. It’s not like Confession, Thanksgiving, or Supplication, where we’re reflecting upon ourselves and our own lives. Adoration is outside of us—it’s focused on God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. This can feel awkward, or we may feel like we’re repeating ourselves day after day. As a result, we might just skip it altogether.

The Most Important Part of Prayer

But even if the Adoration part of prayer feels awkward, I’ve come to believe that it’s actually  the most important part of prayer, the most elemental, and the one I shouldn’t skip. I have two real-life prayer stories that led me to this conclusion and that have changed my prayer life over the past year.

Prayer Story #1: For many years, during the times when I couldn’t fall asleep or would have  insomnia in the middle of the night, I would think, “This is a good time to pray for all those in my life who need prayer.” So I would pray for myself, for others, for those I had promised to pray for, and anything else I could think to ask God for at the moment. For a long time, this focus on Supplication was fine for me … until it wasn’t. Within the past year, I found that lying awake praying for others’ problems or my own problems began to cause me anxiety (and I’m not a person who is prone to anxiety). The difficulties in my own life and in the lives of others felt like they were snowballing and I ended up worrying or thinking too much about things I could do very little about, which caused me a lot of stress in my sleepless state.

One night, I was quite physically exhausted and achy, and as I lay down, I felt a deep sense of peace and bodily comfort just in going to bed. This led to a spontaneous, heartfelt prayer to my heavenly Father, who is a God of comfort, safety, and rest. Without even meaning to, I was focused on Adoration. I was simply praising God for his attributes and who he is, rather than thinking of myself, my problems, other people’s problems, or anything else negative in my life. This pattern has continued in my nighttime prayers. When I focus on Adoration first, quite often I just get stuck there, falling asleep praising God for who he is and feeling such a deep peace simply because I know him.

Prayer Story #2: This story is about my dear mother-in-law, who passed away last year. During the 30+ years that I was blessed to know her, I never heard her pray aloud, although I know she prayed for us privately because she told me so. One day last spring when she was alone in her house, she had a stroke. Her next two months were spent in the hospital, in rehab, and eventually in hospice. During that time, and especially during rehab when she was experiencing probably one of the most difficult and uncertain times of her life, she would unselfconsciously pray aloud, in a voice as strong as she could muster, “God, you are magnificent!” Her one usable arm would extend upward and outward and her eyes would lift to heaven as she repeated this phrase, “You are magnificent!” Bed-bound and trapped in a failing body, but with a mind as sharp as ever, she did a thing I had never seen or heard her do—praying aloud in adoration to God, no matter who was in the room with her. She was no doubt feeling God’s closeness and love for her, even, and especially, in her suffering and her fear. It’s something I will never forget.

In both of these prayer stories, extended Adoration for the Lord happened quite naturally, after decades of faith and prayer. From experience, I know now that there is an immeasurable sense of peace and comfort that comes from simply dwelling on the attributes of God, and perhaps this is easier and less awkward to do as we get older. And if knowing, appreciating, and naming God’s attributes comes more naturally with age or Christian maturity, that is indeed a magnificent part of his plan.

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I created two bookmarks (on Canva, not with AI) that can help you remember the ACTS prayer model. You can download them for free below (print on cardstock if you can).

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R. C. Sproul has two short articles on the ACTS prayer model and the Lord’s Prayer. In the ACTS article, he points out that “the Psalms, which are inspired samples of godly prayer, are heavily weighted on the side of adoration.” He also notes that the Adoration part of the ACTS prayer comes more easily to us (we spend more and more time on it) as we grow in our discipleship and Christian maturity—that’s good news, and something I stumbled upon on my own based on my two “prayer stories” above.

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I’m a big fan of the Bible study guides and resources offered by The Navigators. They have a page on their site about the ACTS prayer model here.

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Image by Tep Ro from Pixabay