By Waylon Bailey Prayer is central to our faith. In fact, prayer seems to be a common practice of all peoples. Prayer is important because it’s essential to getting in touch with God. Even many atheists admit to praying in difficult times. If prayer is so necessary and important, are there ways we harm our times of prayer? Are there ways we should not pray? Let me give you three ways you should consider changing about how you pray. First, don’t pray negatively. In itself, prayer is a positive practice. It is a way of getting in touch with God and letting Him have control over our lives. This is, of course, a positive event. How do we make it negative? We do so by emphasizing what we don’t want to do rather than what we want to do. For example, let’s suppose you need to be more patient. You might pray, “Lord, help me not to be impatient and frustrated today.” That’s a negative prayer. A positive prayer might be like this, “Lord, help me today as I struggle with the difficulties of life. Help me to show the fruit of the Spirit in my life. Let me live in patience, gentleness, kindness, and self-control.” A positive prayer emphasizes what we want to do rather than what we don’t want to do. Second, … [Read more...]