How to learn to pray: a complete step-by-step guide

There is a scene in the Gospel that should comfort us all. Jesus is praying in a certain place. The disciples are watching him. They are men who grew up in the synagogue, who know psalms by heart, who have prayed since childhood. And yet, when Jesus finishes, one of them comes up and says something any of us might say:

“And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

Luke 11:1

“Teach us to pray.” He did not say “teach us to preach” or “teach us to work miracles.” They had seen in Jesus’ prayer something they did not have: an intimacy, a trust, a way of being with the Father that made them hungry. If those men had to ask to be taught, no one should be ashamed of not knowing how to pray. Not knowing how to pray is not a defect: it is the starting point. This article is for you if you have never prayed, if you stopped years ago, if you repeat prayers you learned and feel they go nowhere, or if you do pray but wish you could do it more truthfully. We will go slowly, step by step: what prayer is, whom we are speaking to, the help of the Holy Spirit, how to begin, what to do when you feel nothing, a seven-day plan and, at the end, a prayer to begin this very day.

Prayer is not a technique: it is an encounter

The first thing to be clear about is what we are trying to learn. Praying is not reciting formulas until something happens, nor a relaxation technique, nor a way of getting things out of God. To pray is to be with Someone. It is the conversation of a child with their Father: speaking to him, listening to him, and often simply staying with him. That is why prayer is not measured by the number of words or by how fine they sound. Jesus warned: “when ye pray, use not vain repetitions… for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matthew 6:7-8). God does not need us to inform him; he wants us to come.

This changes the way we learn. A child does not learn to speak by studying grammar: they learn because their mother spoke to them first, thousands of times, before they could answer a single word. So it is with God. He spoke first: in creation, in his Word, in Jesus Christ. Our prayer is always a reply. And like everything worth doing—walking, loving, playing an instrument—we learn to pray by praying. Reading about prayer helps; but ten minutes of clumsy, sincere prayer teach more than ten books.

First, know whom you are speaking to

Many people do not pray because they have a mistaken picture of God: a frowning judge, a distant and busy official, someone who has to be persuaded. Nobody wants to talk to a God like that. Jesus came to show us another face. When he taught us to pray, the first word he put on our lips was “Father.” He himself used the Aramaic word Abba, the word used at home, full of trust and affection. And the astonishing thing is that he gave us his own place:

“And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”

Galatians 4:6

Before you say anything, pause on this: the one who is listening loves you. You do not have to earn his attention. The Bible says that God “will joy over thee with singing,” and even that “he will rest in his love” (Zephaniah 3:17). If your story with your earthly father was painful, this word may be hard for you; tell God that too. He is not like the one who failed you. Read The true love of a Father revealed in Christ Jesus and The throne of grace.

The inner Teacher: the Holy Spirit

Here is the secret many discover late: we do not pray alone. Scripture admits quite frankly that we do not know how to pray, and in the same sentence gives us the answer:

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Romans 8:26

The Holy Spirit is the teacher of prayer who dwells in the believer. It is he who awakens in us the desire to seek God; the desire that brought you to read this is already his work. It is he who makes us say “Abba, Father.” He brings the words of Jesus to mind, gently shows us what we need to confess, puts on our heart the names of people to pray for; and when pain leaves us without words, he prays in us “with groanings which cannot be uttered.” A sigh, then, can be a true prayer, because the Spirit presents it before the Father.

That is why the best way to begin any time of prayer is to ask for his help. The Church has done so for centuries with three words: “Come, Holy Spirit.” Say them slowly, once, twice, three times. They are not a magic formula; they are the opening of a door. And Jesus promised that this request never goes unanswered:

“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”

Luke 11:13

Read Set apart by the Holy Spirit: the filling of our lives and The gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Begin with what you have: the truth

Do not wait until you feel worthy, or until your life is in order, or until you find the right words. Begin with the one thing God asks for: the truth. The psalmist says it with a beautiful image:

“Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.”

Psalm 62:8

To pour out your heart is to tip it over as you would a glass: with whatever is inside. If there is gratitude, gratitude. If there is fear, fear. If there is anger, even anger at God, that too. The Psalms are full of people saying to God things we would not dare to say aloud: “How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever?” (Psalm 13:1). God prefers an honest complaint to a pretended praise. The one thing prayer cannot bear is a mask.

And if you do not know what to say, see how short some of the prayers are that Jesus heard and answered. Peter, sinking: “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30). The tax collector, not daring to lift his eyes: “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). A desperate father: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24). A thief, about to die: “Lord, remember me” (Luke 23:42). None of them is long. All of them were heard. You can begin today with a single true sentence: “Lord, I do not know how to pray; teach me.” That is already a prayer.

Shut the door: a place and a time

Jesus gave a very concrete instruction:

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Matthew 6:6

The “closet” was the inner room of the house, the one that did not open onto the street. Today it may be your bedroom, the kitchen before the others wake, a church pew, the parked car, a path where you walk alone. What matters is to “shut the door”: turn off the phone or leave it in another room, and be for a few minutes for God alone. Jesus himself did this: “in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Choose a fixed time and a length you can keep. Ten minutes every day is better than an hour now and then; love is fed by faithfulness, not by bursts. For many, morning is the best moment, before the day fills with noise: “in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up” (Psalm 5:3). But if your time is night, or midday, that is your time. God does not look at the clock; he looks at the fact that you came.

A simple path for your time of prayer

In time each person finds their own way of praying. Meanwhile, this eight-step path can serve as a handrail. It is not a law; it is a help for the first months.

1. Stop. Sit down, breathe deeply, let your body grow still. Say inwardly: “Lord, here I am.”
2. Call on the Spirit. “Come, Holy Spirit. Teach me to pray.” Stay silent for a moment.
3. Give thanks. Name three specific things from the last twenty-four hours. Gratitude opens the heart faster than anything else.
4. Listen to his Word. Slowly read a short text: a few verses from a Gospel or a Psalm. Read it twice. Pause at the phrase that touches you.
5. Speak to him truthfully. Tell him how you are, what worries you, what you are ashamed of. Ask forgiveness where it is needed, and receive it.
6. Pray for others. Say the names of the people you carry in your heart. You need not explain their problems to God; it is enough to place them before him.
7. Be silent. Stay a couple of minutes without saying anything, simply with him.
8. End with the Lord’s Prayer, slowly, and take one phrase with you for the day.

The Lord’s Prayer: the words Jesus lent us

When the disciples asked him to teach them, Jesus did not give them a lecture: he gave them a prayer.

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”

Matthew 6:9-13

The Lord’s Prayer is at once a prayer to say and a map for praying. It begins with God—his name, his kingdom, his will—before it comes to us: bread, forgiveness, protection. It teaches us to say “our” and not only “my.” It teaches us to ask for today’s need, and not the whole year’s. A simple way to learn with it is to pray it very slowly, pausing at each phrase and adding your own words: “Our Father… thank you that I can call you that.” “Thy kingdom come… to my home, my work, this country.” “Give us this day our daily bread… you know what we need this month.” Another way is to take a single phrase each day for a week. You will find more on this in How to pray: biblical advice for a steady prayer life and in The duty of prayer.

The Psalms: when words fail you

God does not only ask us to pray: he gave us a whole book of prayers. The 150 Psalms were the prayer book of Israel, of Jesus—who died with a psalm on his lips—and of the Church in every century. There are words there for every state of the soul: joy (Psalm 100), fear (Psalm 27), guilt (Psalm 51), weariness (Psalm 23), abandonment (Psalm 22), gratitude (Psalm 103), sleepless nights (Psalm 4). When you do not know what to say, open a psalm and read it quietly as if it were your own. Little by little its words will become yours, and they will teach you to say things to God you did not know you could say. You can read them all in The 150 Psalms, and find prayers for specific situations in Prayers for every moment of our lives.

Learning to be silent and to listen

If only one person speaks, it is not a conversation. Learning to pray is also learning to keep silence. The boy Samuel did not know how to recognise God’s voice until old Eli taught him the shortest prayer of the one who listens: “Speak; for thy servant heareth” (1 Samuel 3:10). And the psalm says: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

How does God speak? Above all through his Word: that is why it is good to pray with the Bible open. Sometimes a sentence read a hundred times suddenly lights up, and you know it is for you. He also speaks through the peace or unease the Spirit places in the conscience, through the counsel of mature brothers and sisters, through circumstances. Rarely with a crash: Elijah did not find him in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in “a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). One safe rule: God will never say in secret anything contrary to what he has already said in Scripture. At first silence is uncomfortable; the mind fills with things to do. Do not be alarmed. Stay. In time you will discover that this silence is not empty: it is inhabited.

Praying with the body and with tears

We are not only a head. In the Bible people pray kneeling, standing, face down on the ground, with hands lifted, walking, in bed. No posture is required, but the body helps the heart: kneeling says “you are God and I am not”; opening the hands says “I receive whatever you give”; lifting them says “I need you.” Praying aloud, or writing your prayer in a notebook, is a great help to anyone who is easily distracted.

And there are days when no words will come, only weeping. Hannah prayed like that in the sanctuary: “she spake in her heart; only her lips moved,” and the priest thought she was drunk (1 Samuel 1:13). God understood her perfectly. The psalmist asks him: “put thou my tears into thy bottle” (Psalm 56:8). No tear shed before God is lost. To weep before him is to pray. If you are going through such a time, read Prayer in times of deep despair and How to pray to God when we are tired.

When you feel nothing

Sooner or later it happens to everyone who prays: days come, or whole seasons, of dryness. You sit down to pray and feel nothing. The words seem to bounce off the ceiling. You are distracted every twenty seconds. Then comes the temptation to conclude that you are no good at this, or that God is not there.

Do not measure your prayer by what you feel. Prayer is not an emotion: it is a relationship, and real relationships pass through days without emotion. A father does not stop being a father because his child is quiet at the table. Often the most valuable prayer is the one made without any desire, purely out of love and faithfulness; that is where it is shown that we seek God and not only his consolations. As for distractions, do not fight them: each time you notice you have wandered, come back gently, without scolding yourself. If you were distracted fifty times and came back fifty times, you made fifty acts of love. And if what distracts you is a worry, turn it into prayer: perhaps that is what God wanted you to talk to him about.

When God seems silent

You will also learn that God does not always answer as we ask or when we ask. Sometimes he says yes. Sometimes he says “wait.” Sometimes he says “no,” because he has something better or because he sees what we do not. Jesus himself, in Gethsemane, asked that the cup might pass from him, and added: “nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). The cup did not pass; but an angel came to strengthen him, and from that prayer came our salvation. To pray is not to bend God’s will towards ours, but to place ours in his hands with trust. And the promise still stands:

“Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 29:12-13

What God guarantees to the one who prays is not that everything will turn out as hoped, but something deeper: his presence and his peace.

“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:6-7

Read Where was God when this happened to me? and Paul’s thorn: when God’s grace is sufficient.

Do not learn alone

The disciples learned to pray by watching Jesus pray, and then by praying together. No one learns well alone. Look for a church where people truly pray. Ask a believer who is further along the road to pray with you; hearing someone who loves God pray teaches more than many explanations. Pray at home: before meals, with your husband or wife, with your children at bedtime. Jesus promised: “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). And when you cannot pray, let others do it for you: you can write to us at Request prayer.

From praying at set times to a life of prayer

The daily time alone is the root; but the goal is for the whole of life to become prayer. Paul says it in three words: “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). It does not mean spending the whole day on your knees, but living in the presence of God, with your heart turned towards him in the midst of everything. Very short prayers help a great deal, shot like arrows through the day: “Thank you, Lord,” on seeing something beautiful. “Help me,” before a difficult conversation. “Forgive me,” the moment you fall. “Jesus, I trust in you,” when fear arrives. “Come, Holy Spirit,” on starting a task. Some Christians repeat, to the rhythm of their breathing, a very ancient prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” In this way, little by little, work, traffic and the kitchen become places of encounter.

A seven-day plan to begin

Ten or fifteen minutes a day. The same place, the same time. Begin each day with “Come, Holy Spirit” and end with the Lord’s Prayer.

• Day 1 — Coming. Read Luke 11:1-13. Tell God, in your own words, why you want to learn to pray.
• Day 2 — Father. Read Luke 15:11-24. Stay with the image of the father running. Say “Father” to him several times, slowly.
• Day 3 — Thanks. Read Psalm 103:1-5. Write down ten things you are thankful for.
• Day 4 — Forgiveness. Read Psalm 51:1-12. Simply confess what weighs on you, and receive God’s forgiveness.
• Day 5 — Asking. Read Matthew 7:7-11. Bring your needs and the names of five people.
• Day 6 — Silence. Read 1 Kings 19:9-13. Stay five minutes in silence, repeating now and then: “Speak; for thy servant heareth.”
• Day 7 — Surrender. Read Matthew 26:36-42. Place in God’s hands what you find hardest to let go: “not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

When the week ends, start again, or go on with a Gospel—Mark is short—reading one passage each day.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to use special words? No. Speak to God in your everyday language, with respect and with trust. He understands the way you talk.

Do written or memorised prayers count? Yes, when they are said from the heart. The Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms are written prayers. What Jesus rebukes is not repetition but empty chatter. Best of all is to join the two: prayers received and words of your own.

How long should I pray? Begin with ten faithful minutes. The time will grow by itself, as the pleasure of being with someone you love grows.

Does God hear me even if I am in sin? The tax collector who could only ask for mercy “went down to his house justified” (Luke 18:14). The prayer of the one who returns is always welcome. Read I am a sinner: will God accept me?

What if I fall asleep? Falling asleep in the Father’s arms is no offence. Try praying at another time, sitting up or walking.

What do I do if I have stopped praying for several days? Come back today, without punishing yourself. God does not keep a tally of your absences; he is waiting for you.

A prayer to learn to pray

Lord Jesus, like that disciple, today I ask you myself: teach me to pray. I do not know how. I get distracted, I grow tired, I say words I do not feel, and often I do not even come. But something in me is seeking you, and I believe you put that desire there. Come, Holy Spirit. Come into this clumsy prayer and make it yours. Pray in me when I do not know how; groan in me when I cannot. Teach me to say “Abba, Father” as Jesus said it: without fear, knowing I am your child. Take off my masks, for with you I do not need them. Give me a hunger for you, more than for your gifts. And when I feel nothing, when you are silent, when I grow weary, do not let me leave: hold me, for on my own I do not know how to stay. Here I am, Father. I shut the door. I only want to be with you. Speak, for your servant is listening. Amen.