Friday, September 21, 2012

A Plan for Prayer

A SUGGESTED PLAN FOR PRAYER (adapted from If God Already Knows Why Pray? By Douglas F. Kelly) After having read a daily portion of Scripture, it is time to turn the promises into prayer. This takes time, planning, and effort. Be Systematic Some believers will be able to spend an hour each day in specific prayer. For those of you that wish to try this, Dick Eastman suggests a plan to divide an hour into twelve portions of five minutes each. During each one you cover a different aspect of prayer, thus making an hour much easier to get through. For my own part, I have made an adaptation of Eastman's method into seven segments: praise, waiting, confession, scripture praying, watching, intercession, and thanksgiving. Each one is perhaps five minutes each, except for intercession, which lasts for perhaps ten to fifteen minutes. At the end of this appendix you will find several pages to assist you in organizing your time in this way, if you wish.

Need a Useful Bible Reading Plan?

A SUGGESTED PLAN FOR BIBLE READING (adapted from If God Already Knows Why Pray? By Douglas F. Kelly) This plan has been helpful to many since Puritan times and was designed to cover the Scriptures in exactly 365 days. Its special value is that it gives you a varied diet by exposing you to different parts of Scripture each day while providing continuity by causing you to return to the same section on the same day of the week all through the year.