A friend of mine recently asked me to pray for something going on in his life. So I stopped what I was doing and dashed off a quick prayer in support of my friend. But in the middle of it, I thought, "Well that's rude. You just jumped straight into asking for what it was you wanted. Try again."
My pastor frequently uses A.C.T.S. as a way to help a person organize their prayers. The idea is to pray 4 specific things, and in a particular order.
A = Adoration: Take time to recognize who God is.
C = Confession: Take time to recognize who you are.
T = Thanks: Take time to appreciate all that God has done for you.
S = Supplication: Take time to ask God for blessing.
So that's what I did. But the problem is this. After recognizing who God is, who I am, and all that He's already done for me, it seemed incredibly snotty to ask for anything at all.
And yet the Bible makes it pretty clear that we are to come to God with our requests. Sometimes I don't know how to do that.
I finished my prayer for my friend. But it was, to say the least, really quite hesitant.
