How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People

by Pete Greig

highlight occasions when you were selfish, lustful, deceitful, pompous, hurtful, or unkind. Things that may have been relatively easy to justify or ignore in the swirl of the moment become so much harder to excuse under the direct gaze of God. Whenever our dirty little secrets, which flourish like fungi in the darkness, are exposed to the surgical brilliance of his light, we can try to

conceal them, like Adam and Eve, who “hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden”;[12] or we can pretend they’re not there, like the Pharisee praying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people”; or we can hold up our hands and confess them like the tax collecto...

man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.”[13] You probably take a regular bath or shower to remove the dirt from your body. In the same way, you are invited to come to God regularly, praying, “Cleanse me . . . and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”[1...

have seemed shameful or even shocking will become tolerated, accommodated, and eventually normalized as your conscience is numbed. But by confessing your sins regularly, your life will smell sweet! You will be...

we turn our attention to the challenges of tomorrow, asking for God’s strength to live a little more for his glory. The apostle Paul says that we are “transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory,”[15] but how does this actually take place? Is it just a mystery? An automatic thing that happens regardless of the

choices we make? Sadly, we’ve all met enough cantankerous old Christians to realize that there’s nothing inevitable about sanctification. I believe that it is received incrementally day by day, choice by choice, as we train our brains to “rejoice always” and incline our hearts again and again away from the shadows and toward the light.

Millions of people have found freedom from addictions through the twelve-step program, the fifth step

of which is simple confession: “We admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” There is such power in confessing our sins, not just to God but also to another person.

Again and again, I have found relief and release in the simple act of admitting my failures, bringing them into the light. God sent me back in...

sons, and in their hugs, I received absolution. “Confess your sins to each o...

anarchic comedian Russell Brand, formerly renowned for his debauched life of drug and sex addiction, has written a surprising paean to the twelve-step program, through which, he says, he has found freedom and

hope. “Confession returned me to the wholeness of myself and the wholeness of the world,”

he says. “It was restora...

We cannot be more reconciled with him than we are with...

The little girl stared at him. “I was talking to God. I was praying to God for the people in the street.”

“You were praying for them? But Ruby, why were you praying for them?” Her eyes widened. “Well, don’t you think they need praying for?” Robert Coles was lost for words. Regaining his composure, he whispered, “What do you say when you pray for them, Ruby?” “Oh, I always say the same thing. Please, God, try to forgive these people. Because even if they say

those bad things, they don’t know what they...

The Lord’s Prayer is a cry for reconciliation at every level—in our broken relationship with God (“Our Father in heaven, hallowed

be your Name”), in our broken relationships with one another (“forgive us . . . as we forgive”), and in our broken relationship with the world (“your kingdom come”). In fact, this line about forgiving those who sin against us can be applied to every other line of the prayer. Our Father’s name is hallowed as we forgive. His Kingdom comes as we forgive. We are forgiven as we forgive.

Our world is bitterly divided between left and right, black and white, rich and poor, East and West, liberal and conservative, women and men, religious fundamentalism and free-market capitalism. The lawyer and apologist Michael Ramsden says that the three most powerful words in the Engli...

Societies are fragmenting. International alliances are ending. Politics is polarizing. Tribalism, nationalism, and protectionism are proliferating. At such a time, we simply cannot separate our prayers for the coming of God’s Kingdom from Christ’s radical call to be reconciled with those who sin against us. R...

enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”[25] The apostle Paul says that “God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ,” has given us “the ministry of reconciliation.”[26] Ruby Bridges and Gordon Wilson ministered reconciliation in situations that were socially extreme, and their examples are und...

we’re offended and hurt, we can choose to forgive. We can remain silent on social media when our views are attacked. We can deny ourselves the sugary sympathy of victimhood. We can love and pray for those who would otherwise be our enemies. Jesus says that as we do so—as we stop pointing f...

But forgiveness is the choice to love and let go, not to hate and hold on. It tends to be a process, as we choose to forgive again and again, or, as Jesus puts it, “not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”[27]

the world could hear that Gordon Wilson’s reactions were sincere—not politically calculated

but spiritually inculcated. Here was a heartbroken

She had inculcated grace quietly at home and had been taught to pray for her persecutors by her poor, illiterate parents.

remind us that our choices to forgive can change the world, breaking cycles of bitterness, healing divisions, and multiplying the fractals of grace.

our prayers—all the things described elsewhere in this book—are dead religion. But when we forgive those who hurt us, the Father’s name is hallowed, his Ki...

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. . . . Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. PSALM 51:1-3, 10

Tutu’s conviction, rooted in the teachings of Jesus, was that confession could help victims find healing and perpetrators receive forgiveness.

The results stunned the world as Tutu took the principles of confession out of private pietism and into the heart of the public square, engendering

a type of social holiness that began to pervade the nation a...

You need once more to realize your nothingness before God.”

“delivered from evil,” even though none of them knew the nature of the evil they were fighting.

The conference rose up and prayed so fervently that,

years later, many of those present still recalled the intensity. Consumed with a sense of imminent danger, they fasted from lunch and continued interceding until the middle of the afternoon, at which point a great peace settled on them. The sense of danger subsi...

Edman, far away in Ecuador, had been deliv...

Raymond Edman’s life was a testament to the urgency and power of a particular kind of prayer.

engaged in a form of authoritative and fervent intercession against enemy attack. On that day, they waged war in “the heavenly realms”[2] and won. Raymond Edman was delivered from evil. Their prayers thwarted a life-threatening disease and saved his life.

The Bible is quite clear that we are at war. There is a vicious battle raging all around us between the Kingdom of God and the tyranny of a cruel insurgency. “There is no neutral ground in the universe,” says C. S. Lewis. “Every square inch, ever...