Before starting a new approach to prayer, it is important to understand the simple factors that make prayer so much more powerful and effective. Click here to learn about getting ready for a new life of powerful prayer.

Coming before God hungering and thirsting for cleansing and forgiveness, is the first step. But how do we go about praying effective, organized prayers that don’t wander about aimlessly? We all tend to pray short, confusing little prayers that don’t seem to cover the full parameters of our lives. Please consider using the following method of praying. You need to invest in a little lined notebook. This notebook is then divided up into four separate sections. Each section has specific items entered there to prevent our minds from wandering. As soon as our minds wander, we look down at the point or person we were praying for or about.

The first crucial section is the section on cleansing and forgiveness. After the one-off lifeline has been dealt with, we now adopt the daily cleansing routine. This forms the first section of our prayer time - confessing our sins from the previous day, and accepting the provision of God’s forgiveness. After we have received forgiveness from God, we then forgive anyone and everyone who have hurt us or who we are at enmity with. It is helpful to jot down specific things in our personal notebook that helps us concentrate on that particular point.

In this section, we jot down all the things that we are thankful for. Examples can be our health, our families, this new miraculous discovery in changing our lives, friends, people to help, our abilities, our jobs, our hobbies, our interests and so many answered prayers. List them each individually.

Most people are worse off than we are. We just don’t know it. As we become aware of the needs of people around us, our focus will move away from our seemingly large problems. As we write down the names of people around us - our close family members, people at work, our friends and their friends - we suddenly wake up to the fact that people need us to pray for them. As we experience our prayers being answered in the lives of these people, we are encouraged and our faith in God strengthened. Praying for others has a miraculous therapy for each of us. We cannot pray for others without reaching into their lives in one way or another. We will automatically feel impressed to call them on the phone or speak to them when we meet them. So a miraculous synergy develops between us and all the people in and around our lives. If we were lonely, we suddenly aren’t lonely anymore. If we were depressed by our problems, we suddenly find our problems not quite as drastic.

Praying for ourselves is now a lot simplified. With our focus on forgiveness and cleansing, on thankfulness and on others, our lives seem a lot less complicated.  Nevertheless, we still write down a list of items that need God’s attention. There are always small practical things in our lives that need attention. Things like coming out with our money, buying a new car, finding a job, the right marriage partner, solving a problematic relationship, meeting new people, moving houses or even moving countries. Once again, this list is a real list that we can tick off item by item as God answers our prayers.