I have just completed a 12 week, 10 hours per week prayer discipline that has been extremely beneficial in terms of spiritual development and knowledge of God and self. I used Leanne Payne's 'Listening Prayer journal' methodology and here it is in concise form:
DAILY PRAYER OUTLINE
1) Meditation of the Scriptures.
Meditate on text prayerfully.
Speak spontaneous words back to God (guidance, exhortation, further understanding etc) and record in ‘word’ section.
Record ‘truth’ wherever encountered.
Lord’s prayer.
2) Praise and Thanksgiving: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name”.
Record scriptural passages, hymns, insights that give a boost into praise and thanksgiving when needed.
Keep list of current answers to prayer and other unexpected bounties.
3) Intercession: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Prayer for others.
4) Personal Petitions: “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Record personal petitions in the word section as they occur naturally in prayer. Record ones in this section that require further listening.
Pray for strength. Pray for wisdom. Pray for guidance.
5) Repentance and Forgiveness Prayers: “And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
· Forgive us our sins as we forgive everyone who sins against us
i. Pray life in manageable segments (new Xians esp)
· And lead us not into temptation
i. Be self controlled and alert
· But deliver us from the evil one
i. Satan defeated; repent for those sinned against us as yet unrepentant
· Prayer for enemies
i. Make them beloved. Health and wholeness. Beauty to shine from them.
6) A full committal of ourselves and our day to God: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”
7) Listening Prayer.
My thought: use centering prayer from lection divina.
Physical: Seating; relax muscles in sequence; listen to breathing.
Spiritual: Focus on God: pray (come Lord Jesus) as a centering prayer; pray for God’s presence and spiritual protection.
Prayer for entry into listening prayer:
Come, Holy Spirit. Come, enter deeply into this child’s heart and bring up exactly what we need to talk about. Give me the eyes to see and the ears to hear what we need to pray about, and how we are to pray.
Seek God alone, never an experience or word He may send. Not practicing a feeling, but acknowledging that God is really there.
Record answers, messages from God in word section.
Acknowledge Presence.
NIB Matthew 28:20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
NIV John 15:4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Pray this:
There is another who lives in me- Christ, the light of the world, by whose Spirit and Word I am led into all truth, by whose Spirit I can look up to the Father, sovereign over all, transcendant, high and holy, and know Him as my heavenly Father.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for indwelling in me, for linking me to God the Father, for helping me to receive His words of love and affirmation in such a way as I find, accept, and live out my true and full identity as His beloved child, in You and through the redemption You won for me.
And may Your word, together with Your presence within, radiate up throughout my entire being, increasingly granting to me a cleansed and holy intellect, imagination and sensory feeling being. I thank you, Lord, even in this moment and in advance, for the answer to this prayer. Amen.
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