Pray Everything

Summer ’26 mini-Series

Let’s be honest.

Prayer is a tricky thing.

For many Christians it can be a source of guilt: “I don’t pray enough.” It can be a thing of dread: “I have to pray now because I scheduled it in my calendar.” Prayer can be a place we perform: “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy…” (Any other Catholic-raised Christians in the house)?

Prayer can become disconnected from our genuine selves, our genuine language (who has used hallowed in a conversation recently?), and our genuine hearts. The prophet Isaiah says there’s a problem with this:

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Is 29:13)

There is nothing wrong with praying prayers in the Bible. We should increasingly have our prayers shaped according to the priorities of God in Scripture.

What is for certain, though, is that prayer is the litmus test for what we believe. John Coe and Kyle Strobel in their book Where Prayer Becomes Real write:

“Our prayer life is our Christian life miniaturized. What we believe about life with God reveals itself in how we pray.”

How you talk to God. When you talk to God. What you talk to God about. What you think God thinks about you when you talk to Him. All these reveal the truth about who you believe God is and what life with God is all about.

It’s very humbling to listen to yourself pray because it reveals a lot about what you do (or do not believe) about Him.

Last year I was amazed at how often these thoughts ran through my head:

“God doesn’t care about that in my life.”
“I shouldn’t pray like that.”
“But I can’t be angry at God.”

Really?

I have become convinced that nothing in your heart is out of bounds in prayer. Your joys, your sorrows, your dreams, your sins (what do we think confession is?)—God wants to hear all of it in prayer. We are invited by God to pray everything.

In this two-week mini-series, we will be looking at two passages of Scripture that encourage us to bring everything to God in prayer.

This Sunday we will hear three reasons why we can be real with God in Hebrews 10:19-22. The following week we will learn how to pray our “negative emotions” to God by lamenting in Psalm 77.

My prayer for these two weeks is that more of us can find freedom in prayer as we come to God in the reality of who we actually are. No hiding. No masks. No performance. “God. This is how I am today. This is what is true of my heart today.”

A prayer life that works in “real life” might be as simple and freeing as that.

Resources That Informed This Series

(#1 Recommendation)

Where Prayer Becomes Real by Kyle Strobel & John Coe

(Other Books)

When God Seems Distant by Kyle Strobel & John Coe
Beloved Dust by Jamin Goggin & Kyle Strobel
Steps by John Ortberg
Lament For A Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff
Embracing the Love of God by James Bryan Smith

(Podcasts on Prayer)

Reconstructing Faith, Spiritual Disciplines Won’t Change Your Life with Trevin Wax
Reconstructing Faith, An Active Christian Life…Where God is Unnecessary with Trevin Wax