Is There a Right Way to Pray? Honestly, I'm Not Sure Anyone Knows

Is there a right way to pray?

Is there a way of praying that makes God more likely to actually listen?

Honestly, I don't know. And the more I think about it, the more I suspect nobody fully knows either.

We all pray for our own reasons. Sometimes it's because we want something badly. Sometimes it's for a slightly easier life. Sometimes it's just, please don't let me get sick. And sometimes, in the worst moments, we turn to God simply because there's nowhere else left to turn.

Everyone's reasons are a little different. But when I sit with it, most of our prayers seem to circle the same handful of things. Let my family be okay. Let us stay healthy. Let this problem get solved.

Mine have mostly been that too.

What have I actually been praying for?

Writing this, a question caught me off guard: what have I actually been praying for, all this time? Who have I been praying for?

Looking back, I've asked God for a lot. Prayers for my family. Prayers about what's coming next. Prayers that whatever I was afraid of wouldn't happen. On the hardest days, I prayed the same thing several times before noon.

Then I asked myself something I hadn't before: have I ever, even once, prayed without asking God for something for myself?

I honestly don't think I have. Almost all of it was for my family, my future, the things I wanted to happen.

I'm not saying that's wrong. There's nothing wrong with someone in pain bringing that pain to God. But it made me wonder — is that all prayer is? Just asking Him to make what I want come true?

Does God keep score?

I've had thoughts like this before, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit them.

Does praying more often mean God listens more closely? Does someone who prays every day get heard differently than someone who only prays once in a while? Is praying for someone else worth more than praying for myself? Do I need to have been good enough, lately, for my prayer to count?

Thinking that way turns the whole relationship into something closer to a transaction. I've prayed this much, so give me this. I believed hard enough this time, so let it happen.

I don't think God actually looks at us that way. But I can't say I'm sure of that either. It's just what I've slowly come to believe, from however many years of living with the question.

I've prayed and not been answered

I'm bringing all this up because I've prayed plenty myself. Desperately, some of it — the same words, repeated several times a day.

Most of the time, what I was asking for didn't happen. No matter how much I prayed, the situation stayed exactly where it was. Some days it felt like nothing was moving at all.

So for a while, I thought things like: is my prayer wrong somehow? Do I not have enough faith? Is He even listening?

I doubt I'm the only one who's thought that. There are moments when you pray and nothing changes — sometimes it even feels like things got harder instead. And in those moments, I found myself doubting my own faith before anything else.

So what is the right way to pray?

I'd genuinely like to know the answer to that too.

There's a verse I keep coming back to:

"Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39, NIV

Even Jesus told God plainly what He wanted. But in the end, He asked for God's will, not His own.

Reading that, I've started to think prayer might not simply be a way of demanding that things go the way I want.

I still want a lot of things, if I'm honest. I want my family healthy. I want the road ahead to be a little easier. I want to not have to go through anything hard for a while. I still say all of that when I pray, and I don't think that makes it a bad prayer.

But lately, there are a few other things I've been trying to pray, too.

Help me not only look at what I want.
Help me know what I'm supposed to do.

And, at the end —

Give me a heart that can accept it, even if it doesn't go the way I hoped.

Maybe there's no single right answer

I still don't know the right way to pray. I don't know which prayers are "better" than others. I don't know how long a prayer needs to be, or how desperate I need to feel for it to count.

And more than anything, I can't tell you that praying guarantees the thing you're asking for will happen. I've lived that firsthand.

But there's one thing I'm starting to understand a little.

I turn to God when things get hard. Even after long stretches of not praying at all, the hard moments bring me back every time.

Help me.
I'm really struggling.
I don't know what to do.

Maybe even those short lines count as prayer. Maybe you don't need grand language or beautifully composed sentences. Maybe it's just telling Him, honestly, whatever is actually sitting in your heart right now.

That's the part I'm trying to return to.

What are you praying for?

Writing this, I find myself asking it of myself again. What am I actually praying for? To get what I want? For an easier life? For hard things to disappear? Or because I'm genuinely looking for God?

Honestly, I still don't know. I may never land on a complete answer.

But one thing is certain. I still turn to God when things are hard. And even now, writing this, I'm still wondering — does He really keep score of our prayers the way I used to fear?

I don't know.

But I'm slowly letting go of the idea that a prayer has to be perfect before He'll listen.

So today, I'm praying again. Still not sure of much. Just talking to Him anyway.

I'm here.
And I'm still looking for you.

Maybe that's a prayer too.