How to Pray to God
5 Steps to Pray with Gratitude and Structure
God loves you.
But how do you pray to Him?
There is an ancient five step pattern, a soft template, that can help guide your soul through any prayer. Whether it be a prayer with the family before bed or a longer meditative prayer in the stillness before morning.
With these five steps, you can help calm the soul and help it to focus on approaching God with the proper disposition, a grateful heart.
In prayer, Christians teach that the soul becomes more beautiful as Christ is beautiful, but you must first learn to pray well—and an ancient, time-tested formula can help.
Today is a good day to start. Here is how you pray.
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God loves you
First, you need to understand that God loves you. Christians call God “Father” not because He is like a father, but because all earthly fathers are images of Him. He wants to hear from His children, and any prayer from the heart, one that is expressed in humility, is a good prayer.
Think of this: Christians teach that Jesus died for you. The death of Christ, the God-man, resolved the cosmic injustice of sin and opened wide the gates of heaven for mankind. The Passion of Jesus, his flogging and crucifixion, was excruciating—a word invented to describe this utter pain; however, did you know that if you were the ONLY person on earth, Jesus would have still died for you. In fact, there is NO ONE for whom Jesus did not die.
As the Bible teaches:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17).
God wants to hear from you like a loving Father. And maybe you do not know how to pray, but like a father who watches his child try to do something good for the first time, God meets you with love and patience.
Pray from the heart. Pray with humility.
Here are five steps to help:
1. The Invocation
The traditional structure of Christian prayer is that the prayer is addressed to God the Father. The template for this is the Lord’s Prayer, the Pater Noster, given to you by Jesus himself in His famous Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). There are many titles by which you could invoke the prayer: Father, Eternal Father, Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Father of Mercies, et al.
Pick a title for God the Father that resonates with your heart and start there.
Does this mean you cannot pray directly to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit? No. But, the tradition formula of Christian prayer is to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
2. A Grateful Heart
A grateful heart is a pious heart. Piety, best understood, is a type of justice, one that is moved by gratitude to acknowledge a debt that can never be paid. The ancients spoke of piety toward parents, toward the polis (country), and toward God. A good prayer starts with gratitude, with thanksgiving. It cultivates the heart and puts things in perspective. You always want to express gratitude prior to asking for anything.
Christians will speak of anamnesis, which is Greek for “remembrance.” It has been an important part of Christian prayer and liturgy since ancient times. To wit, you want to remember what God has done for you, and this should cultivate gratitude.
There are two ways to practice this anamnesis. First, you could recall something from Holy Scriptures that God did for His people—a lesson from the Bible that shows God’s goodness and fidelity. For example:
Holy Father, you cared for your people in the desert even when they murmured against you…
Eternal God, you preserved Daniel in the lion’s den even when all seemed lost…
Father of Mercies, you sent your Son, Jesus, to die for us when we were yet sinners…
All of these recall God’s goodness in salvation history, and they are all examples that cultivate gratitude in the heart, i.e., God is a loving Father who cares for His children. The second manner is to have an anamnesis about your own life, to remember what God has done for you:
Creator of Heaven and Earth, you were with me after my husband died, and you never left my side…
God Almighty, when I lost my job, you were there for me, you were so good to me and took care of me…
Eternal Father, when I strayed away from you and what was good for me, you called me back, and loved me…
All these are recalling something from your own life that helps you remember God’s goodness. People are good at remembering what they want, but poor at giving thanks for what they have received. Anamnesis helps cultivate gratitude in the heart by recalling what God has done for you, which is why it has and continues to be a central part of Christian worship.
3. The Petition: Ask What is on Your Heart
You have invoked God the Father and recalled His goodness toward you. Gratitude tills the heart to ask of God what it wants and to ask well. You want your petition to God, to align with what God wants for you—this means all that is true, good, and beautiful. And yes, we need, as embodied creatures, material goods. We need food and shelter, and we want warm, safe homes to raise children. But most of all, what you need, are spiritual goods. You need grace and mercy. You need virtue, which is what makes the soul beautiful. You need patience and bravery. For example:
Eternal Father, you called Moses out of the wilderness to what you wanted for his life, to be the leader of your people, please show me what you want for my life…
Creator God, you took St. Peter from denying your Son three times to preaching to the masses at Pentecost, please transform my soul, please give me the bravery and fortitude I need…
Father of Mercies, you have been a good Father to your children throughout the centuries, show me how I can be a better father to my children…
It should be stated that each part of this prayer can be as long or short as you want. It may be helpful to spend two or three minutes listing the things for which you are grateful before you ever ask God for something more. Also, your petition might be for many related things, small and big, and listing them all helps you better see the real needs. Again, this is a soft template to speak in relationship to the God who loves you.
4. Why? - The Ut Quid
Here is a part of the prayer many miss—the tradition ut quid. Yes, you’ve asked God for something—but why? This helps you to contemplate your intentions and what need you are trying to meet. It serves as an examination of your own soul and its desires. For example:
God Almighty, you cared for Abraham and called him out of Ur to be the father of many nations, help me to be a good father to my children, help me to see my vocation as a father, so that I can raise them as good and holy children of God who know they are loved by you…
Eternal Father, your Son wept and raised Lazarus from the dead, be with me during my weeping, stand by me during my sadness, so that I may, like Lazarus, rise from this darkness and remember who I am in you, a child of God…
Creator of Heaven and Earth, you fed your people manna in the desert, care for me and my family while I am in between jobs, so that I can find dignified work and support my family, to whom you’ve been so kind and gracious…
Remember after you ask God for something, to state why you want that something—this is a bit of a mirror to the soul, a chance for the soul to examine its own desires and, if needed, purify them.
5. Conclusion
The traditional end for a Christian prayer is Trinitarian and goes like this:
…I ask all this in Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.
…we ask all this through your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.
You can also end your prayer with a formal prayer, which is quite helpful if you are praying with other people. For example:
…we ask all this as we pray together, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…
…we ask all this as we pray together, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.
Prayer with a formal, group prayer allows others to join and finish the prayer, which is a beautiful way to pray with those you love, especially your family.
Remember that God loves you!
These are not steps to appease Him in some arbitrary way, but rather steps that help you cultivate the right disposition in the soul to pray to God well. We want to pray with a grateful heart and one that wants what God wants for us.
You are loved by God. Say a prayer to Him today.
Dcn. Harrison Garlick is a deacon, husband, father, Chancellor, and attorney. He lives in rural Oklahoma with his wife and five children. He is also the host of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast. Follow him on X at Dcn. Garlick or Ascend.
This is very useful. Especially the ut quid. It adds a surprising depth to one’s prayer. It stops us from just listing off requests and makes us pause to ask, why am I asking this?
Maybe what we really want is comfort when God is trying to give us courage. Or success when what we need is strength. Ut quid helps untangle those motives.
It turns one’s prayer into a mirror. The more clearly we see what we’re really asking for, the more open we become to being changed by it.
It’s a habit worth practicing:
After every request, a simple, “for what purpose, Lord?”