Hey, guys.
It's Alex Williams, and I have a question for you.
If you could spend time with anyone in the world, who would it be?
Maybe it's your favorite actor, your favorite athlete, Kanye.
I would personally love to spend some time with Beyoncé.
That would be amazing.
So whoever that person is for you, even if you could just spend an hour,
wouldn't that be awesome?
Well, how cool is it that God wants to spend time with us every single day.
The God who created the whole, entire world and you, he wants to spend time with us.
He wants us to have a conversation with him.
And we can have a conversation with God whenever we want.
And we do that through prayer.
Now, you've probably heard of prayer before, but that doesn't necessarily mean
that it's always easy.
What do I say when I pray?
How am I supposed to pray?
Is God even really listening?
So today I want to share with you a way that I pray and maybe you can use it, too.
It might not necessarily be the right way to pray.
It might not necessarily be the only way to pray.
But this is the way that I've used that works, and I actually use the word pray.
P-R-A-Y.
Praise, Repent, Ask and Yield.
Pray.
Now, you might not understand what some of those words mean so I'm going to go through
them and give you a little bit more of an explanation.
So I start out with "P," praise.
Did you know that God is praised in the Bible over 350 times?
It's pretty important.
I can always think of something that I am thankful for, and it's so important to tell
God what you're thankful for and tell him you're thankful for what he's doing in your life.
The second one is "R," repent.
Repent means to say you're sorry for what you've done that is wrong
and then to turn away from doing it again.
The word repent literally means to turn around.
So this is the part of prayer where I tell God the not so awesome things that I've done
in my life and tell him that I want to turn around and do better.
And the coolest part about this is even when I tell God the things that I've done that
might be wrong, he forgives me.
The third one is ask.
Yeah.
God says that we get to ask him for whatever we need.
Now, he might not always say yes, but that's because he loves us so much and he knows us
better than anyone else.
So he knows exactly what we need, and he will give us what we need.
All we have to do is ask.
The last part of the prayer that I do is "Y," yield.
Yield is kind of a funny word.
It means to wait.
What does waiting have to do with prayer?
This is the part of prayer that most people skip.
When I get done talking to God, I want to give an opportunity for it to actually be
a conversation.
A conversation isn't just one person talking, right?
It's a two-way street.
Here's something that I do to yield.
Sometimes I just sit in the quiet, and I feel a sense of peace.
Sometimes I read my Bible, and I will read an encouraging verse
or something that's to help me get through my day.
So even if it feels awkward or weird at first, the more and more you talk to God, the more
and more natural it will seem.
It's just like a friend, right?
When you meet a friend for the first time, you don't get to know them right away.
It takes some time, and it takes a lot of conversation.
So stick with it.
I'm going to pray with us right now.
God, I thank you so much that you have given us a way to connect with you.
We love you and thank you for loving us.
And in your name, Amen.
I can't wait to see how God works in your life through prayer.