Throughout the Bible there are a number of instances where God uses dreams to guide and protect.  From Joseph in Genesis to Solomon in 1 Kings 3:5, God speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their bed (Job 33:15).  But what if you are someone who hardly ever remembers your dreams and when you do, you only remember confusing bits and pieces?

You can try these 10 tips to help you receive heavenly messages and problem-solving wisdom while you dream.

1. Turn off electronics at least a half hour before you go to bed.  Instead use this time to quiet your mind.

2. Close your eyes and turn your question into a prayer like this: “Dear God, I need your guidance and divine instruction. Please help me with this problem while I sleep.”

3. Relax and leave the situation in God’s hands. Be confident that He hears and will answer you.

4. Use the snooze. Often the best time to remember your dreams is early morning, that fuzzy time right before waking. Linger in bed for 5 to 10 minutes. Don’t concentrate or try. Simply be open to hearing and remembering God’s wisdom.

5. Keep a dream journal. An inexpensive notebook by your bed is perfect. Write down anything at all that you remember.  The more effort you put into remembering your dreams, the more dreams you’ll remember.

6. Be patient.  Don’t expect results overnight. Of course, you might wake up with the answer on the first try, but if it takes longer, that’s completely normal.

7. Make it a habit. Get into the routine of turning off your TV or phone and turning to God in prayer. The more you practice the stronger you will get at remembering your dream life.

8. Trust that God will help you remember what is important in your dream.  Even if you aren’t going through a tough time, or need guidance, your dream life can be a valuable and beautiful extension of your prayer life.

9. Remember that your dreams are very personal.  If a dream confuses you, ask yourself what you think it means or how the dream made you feel.  Look for ways that the dream can be used for healing and moving forward.

10. Thank God for His guidance and keep track of your answered prayer dreams in a special section in your journal.  Over time you’ll be amazed how His counsel has improved the quality of your life.

When Jesus taught his followers to pray, he could have said to pray, “bless us” or “help us.” But he didn’t. He said, “Give us this day our daily bread.” He urged his followers to be specific in prayer.

To his first followers, bread was central to life. It was a staple. A necessity. A lifeline. So Jesus said, “Pray for bread.” Praying for specific needs like that has several advantages: 

1)  Praying for specific needs clarifies our minds.
I can imagine Jesus responding to my prayers much as he spoke to Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52):

“Oh, Lord, have mercy on me.”
“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Please come to me.”
“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Please bless me.”
“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Help me.”
“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Well, what I really need is enough patience not to scream at my little boy who just spilled his juice all over the new carpet.”
“Ah, well, I can do that. I can also remind you to put a lid on his cup from now on.”

Maybe you don’t relate to God in quite that way. But I think Jesus’ instruction to pray specifically for our needs helps us to spell out and spill out what we really want to ask.  

2)  Praying for specific needs helps us define our needs.
Often in prayer I have asked God for something and soon have heard myself saying something like, “No, that’s not it exactly. It’s not that, but this other thing I really need.”

For example, “Lord, bless me” won’t lead me to recognize that I don’t need a raise as much as I need to say no to buying more stuff, or that maybe I don’t need a new co-worker but the wisdom, love and humility to resolve my conflicts with the one I have.

3)  Praying for specific needs emphasizes our dependence on and intimacy with God.
If I really pray for God to provide the bread I need today, I may be tempted to forget that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.”

But if I pray for the things I need, I am not only reminded of that fact but am also drawn closer to my Father as I do “precisely what children do when they love and trust the one they call ‘Father’.”

4)  Praying for specific needs makes us more alert to answers.
If I pray for “blessings,” God may answer but I may not recognize the answer when it comes. But if, on the other hand, I pray for “bread”—or someone similarly specific—I will be more attentive and alert to the answer when it comes.

5)  Praying for specific needs increases our faith.
As a young pastor, I was awed by the men and women of faith who surrounded me. Their lives, words and prayers revealed depths and heights of faith that were simultaneously attractive to me and seemingly impossible for me.

Then one day, decades later, I realized that I truly believed and trusted God—probably not as well as those I looked up to years ago, but certainly in ways I had once thought impossible.

Why? Because in those years I had experienced—over and over again—God’s faithfulness in hearing and answering prayer. The more I learned to pray specifically, the more I saw and marked and remembered his answers. And each time that happened, my faith grew.

Adapted from The Red Letter Prayer Life by Bob Hostetler (Barbour Books 2015)

My older brothers often use words in speech or writing that I have to look up…or pretend I understand until I can find the opportunity to look it up. Their vocabularies far exceed mine. I tell myself that is not because they are more erudite than I am, but because they are much, much older (and so have had many more years to learn all those fancy words)!

There is a benefit to their frequent pedantry, however. It often drives me to the dictionary (albeit sometimes in secret), where I learn new words and their meanings, which then quickly enrich my own conversations and writing.

Something like that has happened over the years in my prayer life. I am far from a scholar, but a handful of Greek words I picked up from studying the Bible have changed my prayers and paid rich dividends in my life:

1)  Agapé
“Love” is a many-splendored thing, the song says. But in English, the word “love” can be so broad in meaning that it becomes practically meaningless.

That is why I sometimes pray more specifically for myself and my loved ones to know and practice agapé, the Greek word the New Testament uses to refer to the self-sacrificing, all-encompassing love of God.

Agapé is the word Paul uses to describe “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18-19, NIV). So I don’t just pray for love in my life and the lives of those around me, I pray for agapé.

2)  Charis
Charis is a Greek word that means, “grace,” “favor,” “blessing” or “kindness.” It is the word that gives us the English word “charisma” and is the root of the word “eucharist.”

I sometimes use charis when I pray instead of those words (especially the word “bless,” which I have used so much that it has lost much of its meaning).

I ask God to shower charis on me and those I pray for. I ask for our lives to be “Eucharistic.” I ask for a life of “charisma,” of outflowing, grace-spreading influence to those all around.

Read More: 5 Hebrew Words to Pray

3)  Dunamis
When Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus referring to God’s “incomparably great power for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19, NIV), he used a common Greek word, dunamis. It is the word from which sprang our English words, “dynamic” and “dynamite.”

So when I pray for God’s power to be shown in and through and around me, I sometimes pray for dunamis, because the “dunamis” of that word seems more “dynamic” than the oft-used English word, “power.” See what I mean?

4)  Poiema
One of my favorite Greek words was used by Paul when he told the Ephesian church that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).

The word, “handiwork,” is a translation of the Greek word, poiema. It is a rich word. It can mean “work of art” or “masterpiece.” The English word “poem” comes from poiema.

So, when I give praise and thanks for God’s work in me or others, or pray for His continued craftsmanship in a life or a situation, I pray for poiema, for His masterful artwork to be shown.

5)  Teleios
Another word that expresses far more than any single English word is the Greek word, teleios. It means “complete,” “mature,” or “full grown.” It refers to something (or someone) that is a finished product or well-rounded outcome.

Paul used it (again in the letter to the Ephesians) when he referred to the goal of Christian discipleship, “that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature [teleios], attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13, NIV).

So I will sometimes pray to get closer to teleios in my life and for that “completeness” and conformity to the likeness of Christ to be shown in the lives of those around me.

Just five words, like the five Hebrew words I shared in a previous post, adds depth and breadth to how I pray. In fact, I can say that each word has changed and deepened how I pray, for myself and for others. I would love it if it does something similar for you.

Many people have a mental picture of prayer. They associate prayer with monks or nuns. When they hear the word, “prayer,” they imagine someone kneeling in a chapel or bowing quietly over folded hands. Those are certainly valid images of prayer, but not particularly exciting ones.

It is possible to pray not only in quiet and serene settings, but also with excitement. Here are a few suggestions:

1)  Sing
Musicians know that tempo can both reflect and produce enthusiasm. Sure, you may sing, “Break Thou the Bread of Life” and “Holy, Holy, Holy” in your prayer time. But if you want to pray with excitement, incorporate more upbeat music into your prayers. Try praying the hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” or Hillsong Young and Free’s “Alive” to get your heart pumping. And did you know you can sort your music (in iTunes, at least) according to beats-per-minute?

2)  Dance
Dance has been a way to pray with excitement since the days of Miriam and David. Even if your only dance moves are from “Sweatin’ to the Oldies,” you can infuse your prayers with excitement by coordinating the movement of your body with the passion of your prayers.

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3)  Fight
The hit movie, The War Room, depicts prayer as a battle and shows the characters writing prayers and recording answers with great vigor and determination. You may even don a couple boxing gloves and play the Rocky theme as you punch off items on your prayer list.

4)  March
My friend Dawn leads a ministry in Alabama. She felt inspired to lead her staff of four on a march (Joshua-around-Jericho style) seven times around a building that would have greatly expanded their ministry’s capacity. The next day, however, the building sold to someone else.

A year later, Dawn says, “God laid on my heart that it was time to move out of our present space to make it a space for the homeless. In doing so, He pushed me out of my comfort zone to ask a local church to give us use of their buildings. It was four times larger than our previous space. Not only did they say yes, but God worked it out for us to have the space rent-free in exchange for renovating the space).”

While their initial “prayer march” didn’t bring immediate results, it generated movement that eventually won a great victory.

You may choose to combine two or more of these ways of praying with excitement. You may add calisthenics or bicycling to your prayer routine. Or something else.

However you do it, remember that prayer doesn’t always have to be a placid exercise—as the song of Miriam (Exodus 15), dance of David (1 Chronicles 15), wrestling of Jacob (Genesis 32), and marching of Joshua (Joshua 6) attest.