If you’re anything like me, you come across multiple requests for prayer in the course of a week—or even in a single day. 

You’re scrolling on your Facebook news feed, and an acquaintance has posted, “Prayers please.”

You see an old friend in the grocery store, and they update you on their physical challenges and when you ask how you can help, they say, “Just pray for me.”

You get an email or text about an accident or disaster or serious issue and the sender wants to corral prayer support for that situation.

I used to respond uniformly to such moments. “You’re in my prayers,” I would say. “I’ll pray for you,” I’d promise. And then I would forget. I might manage a prayer later that day, but even as I was responding to the request I knew—and I think they usually knew, too—that I was unlikely to follow through on my promise.

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I hated it. It bothered me. I felt like such a cad. Such a failure. And I let down people I cared about with disturbing regularity. So I stopped.

Nowadays I don’t promise to pray. If I am scrolling on Facebook and someone asks for prayer, I never type “Praying 4 u.” I might, however, type, “Lord, have mercy; send strength and peace.”

If a friend in the store says, “Just pray for me,” I will either stop right then and there to pray quietly and briefly (if I’m confident doing so won’t totally embarrass or freak out my friend) or I will pray as I walk away, and the request is fresh in my mind.

When I receive an email or text about an accident or disaster or serious issue and someone wants me to pray at a certain time or in a certain way, I will pray at that moment—trusting God to upload my prayer at a more helpful time or translate it into more helpful terms, as He sees fit.

This doesn’t mean I’m always in a hurry when I pray; sometimes my prayer goes on longer than I thought and leads me down unforeseen paths. Nor do I never pray later about some of the concerns people share with me in the course of a day or a week; I will often remember to pray again later (that night, for example, or the next morning in my regular prayer times).

But I almost never promise to pray later, unless I record it in my calendar or to-do list on my phone or computer.  And my practice has the added benefit of turning email, texts, Facebook and occasional encounters with old friends into short prayer meetings, which sometimes keeps me in a place of prayer throughout my day. And that’s a far, far better result than broken promises and forgotten prayers.

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Great prayers populate the pages of the Bible. Prayers of Jesus, Moses, David, Daniel and Paul. They have inspired and instructed many. But few people have ever thought to look to the ancient book of Job for guidance in prayer.

Job is the story of a man who had it all and lost it all, a man who suffered greatly but never turned his back on God. But it is also the story of a man who can teach us at least five valuable lessons in prayer:

1)  Pray what’s really on your mind and heart.
Job didn’t mince words with God. His prayers may seem “cheeky” to many modern church-going people. He said things like, “I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 1:2, NIV).

He prayed, “Stop frightening me with your terrors” (Job 13:21, NIV). He complained, “Surely, O God, you have worn me out” (Job 16:7, NIV). He didn’t hold back. He didn’t spout platitudes.

So pray like Job. Pray your true thoughts and feelings. God sees and knows those things anyway, but as C. S. Lewis said, we must learn to “lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us” (C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer; Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964).

2)  Ask God to speak.
Job repeatedly asked God to speak, praying things like, “Tell me what charges you have against me” (Job 1:2, NIV) and “Show me my offense” (Job 13:23, NIV). Those are dangerous prayers, of course, but too often in prayer we do all the talking. We want God to listen to us but we seldom or never listen to Him and miss so much—not only correction but also affirmation and guidance, among other things. So pray like Job. Ask God to speak to you.

3)  Keep asking.
Because Job is not a short book, people sometimes get weary of the back-and-forth between him and God and between him and his friends. But part of the beauty of the story and the poetry is Job’s persistence. He becomes more desperate (and more petulant) as the story progresses, but he never gives up. It is the approach Jesus urges in prayer: “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for” (Matthew 7:7, NIV). So pray like Job. Keep asking.

4)  Accept correction.
The old saying could have been written by (or about) Job: “Be careful what you ask for.” Throughout the book that bears his name, Job repeatedly asks God to speak, to answer Him. When God finally does, Job says, “I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more” (Job 4:4-5, NIV).

Job wanted God to answer him, but when God finally speaks, He says, “I will question you, and you shall answer me” (Job 40:7, NIV, italics added). Eesh. But Job, to his credit, bowed low and accepted God’s correction. So be like Job and accept correction when God offers it.

5)  Wait.
In the midst of his gut-wrenching, life-changing trial, Job’s wife encouraged him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9, NIV). But he did neither. For 40 more chapters, he cried out to God, complained to God and even got petulant with God. But he waited and he endured. And eventually, the Bible says, “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first” (Job 42:12, NIV).

So pray like Job. Go ahead and cry and moan and lay it all out. But wait, too. Remember that God’s time zone is different than yours. He may not show up according to your schedule, because sometimes the waiting is as much a part of His plan for you as the destination.

Not long ago, I had been away on a business trip for a week or so, and when I returned, my four-year-old granddaughter, Calleigh, excitedly showed me a “letter” she had written to me while I was gone.

It was a single page, filled with colorful scribbles and swirls. One or two of the shapes looked like a sun or a flower and parts of it resembled handwriting. But, of course, there was not a single word on it, because Calleigh had not yet learned to spell or write.

So I asked her to read it to me. She said, “Dear God, I love God. No, wait. I’ll start again. Dear Crappaw, I love Crappaw. Thank you for giving me a good day. I love Crappaw. Dear Calleigh.”

I saved the letter and soon recorded her exact words in my journal. I treasure both.

Jesus depicted prayer as something like a child approaching a loving parent (or grandparent). Our words may be primitive. Our prayers may be simple, even painfully so. But God treasures every one. As Richard Foster wrote, “In the same way that a child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer.”

And, just as Calleigh’s letter could hardly have been simpler—or better—our simplest prayers are the best prayers we can offer, especially when they include four of the simplest, easiest, most basic things we can bring to them:

1)  Show Up
Author and philosophy professor Peter Kreeft wrote in his book, Prayer for Beginners:

“The holy Curé of Ars once noticed an old peasant praying alone in church every day before the Eucharist. The Curé asked the peasant what he did when he prayed, and his answer was the most perfect description of contemplative prayer: ‘I look at him, and he looks at me’….That is all. By a simple act of the will, turn your attention to him.”

Film director and actor Woody Allen is often quoted as saying, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” That is certainly true of prayer. Simply turn your attention to God; that is the beginning of prayer, and it is often the great majority of it as well.

2)  Trust
The soul that prays, trusts. The soul that trusts, prays. Wherever you are, remind yourself that God is there. Believe that he is listening. Remember that he is good and loving, and that he knows what you need before you even begin to pray. “The best prayer,” Julian of Norwich said, “is to rest in the goodness of God, knowing that that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need.”

3)  Listen
“It makes no sense for us to do most of the talking,” Kreeft says. “We ought to be listening most of the time.” It may take time and practice before you can differentiate between the voice of God and the voices in your own head, but it is well worth it to try. This is why silence and solitude are so conducive to prayer; they help us develop listening skills.

You may want to repeat the prayer of Samuel: “Speak, your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:10, NLT). You may find it easier to listen while walking in the woods or sitting alone in a country chapel. You may meditate on the words of author Robert Benson: “I need to listen, listen for the prayer of God that is rising in my heart, perhaps for the prayer that I should be praying rather than the one I am praying.”

4)  Ask 
Remember, “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8, ESV). So ask. Simply. Do as Richard Foster suggests:

“In Simple Prayer we bring ourselves before God just as we are, warts and all. Like children before a loving father, we open our hearts and make our requests. We do not try to sort things out, the good from the bad. We simply and unpretentiously share our concerns and make our petitions. We tell God, for example, how frustrated we are with the co-worker at the office or the neighbor down the street. We ask for food, favorable weather, and good health.”

Show up. Trust. Listen. Ask. “On all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests,” the Bible says (Ephesians 6:18, NIV). “In every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6, NIV). “Be direct. Ask for what you need” (Matthew 7:7, The Message). Just ask. And keep on asking.

(This post is adapted from my book, The Red Letter Prayer Life: 17 Words from Jesus to Inspire Practical, Purposeful, Powerful Prayer.)

The Gospel compels us to carry out what many consider to be Jesus’ impractical principles: Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, forgive others as God forgives us, do not judge, love your neighbor as yourself and so forth. These Christian principles provide a road map for how we ought to live, love and pray for others.

By reading the Gospel stories, we discover a compassionate Jesus who took great interest and concern in the needs of others. He extended justice, kindness and love to all He encountered. He reached out to the despised tax collectors, healed lepers, forgave a woman caught in adultery and healed the servant of the Roman Centurion—extending His mercy to Gentiles as well. He repeatedly demonstrated His compassion to all.

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How do these acts teach us to pray compassionately for others? They remind us that people and their needs matter to God. It means that we, too, need to embody that spirit in our prayers.

When we pray with compassion for others, we seek to feel their pain…understand their struggles…place ourselves in their shoes. We empathize with those whom we lift up to God, connecting ourselves with them. They are part of us, and we are part of them.

When praying for others, I like to learn as much about what they are going through as possible. This allows me to put myself in their situation. When this isn’t possible, I spend time reflecting on how they may feel, or I recall my own moment of need. Praying with compassion requires us to remove judgment and be merciful.

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Let us remember that we pray to a compassionate God whose heart is open to our very own needs, a God who weeps with us and is merciful when our actions miss the mark. This same God who hears our prayers also hears the pleas of others.

What has helped you to pray for others with compassion? Please share.

Lord, teach me to be compassionate in all my ways; help me to pray for others with empathy knowing that You care for all Your children.