“Victory doesn’t come by accident.” When I heard that quote from War Room, it took my breath away.  Victory comes through prayer. As Christian women, especially women who minister to others, we need victory to be the rule in our lives.  If that’s your desire, then powerful prayer needs to be a daily part of your life.

The problem is, most of us (myself included) struggle with knowing HOW to pray. But it’s definitely worth our time and effort to learn to pray and develop a healthy prayer life.  Prayer is POWER.  It is communication.  It’s our lifeline!

So I want to share with you five tips to building a strong prayer life.

Praying the will of God is important.  It’s also the best way to ensure you’re praying God’s will is to pray His Word. I think Jesus smiles when we pray His words back to Him. There’s power in the Bible, there’s power is God’s Word being spoken out.

I think when we receive a promise from God in His Word, we can know we’re praying in His will when we pray and speak out that promise.

When we pray specific prayers, we are showing faith.  God’s desire is to bless us in ways that exceed our expectations. In Mark 10:47, the blind man, Bartimaeus said, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus knew that Bartimaeus was blind, and He knew his thoughts, but Jesus answered, “What do you want me to do for you?”

And Jesus is asking you right now, “What do you want me to do for you?”

If we go into prayer blindly and pray vaguely then we will leave feeling unchanged. We don’t want to leave not feeling connected to the One we just spoke to.

Sit down and consider what you want Jesus to do for you.  This isn’t about Jesus being a genie in a bottle. This is about knowing God’s Word so clearly that our hearts are aligned with His and we begin praying a specific prayer that lines up with His will.

James 4:2 says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” We can pray with expectancy that God will give us what is best for us. When you pray specifically, like we talked about in the second step, then you can be more expectant for those specific needs.

Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”  When we pray we can be expectant that God will answer and that He will show us great and mighty things.

1 Thessalonians 5 tells us to pray without ceasing.  Our prayer isn’t supposed to end when we get up from the pew or when our time clock is done. We are to come to God for EVERYTHING.

One of my all time favorite quotes is by Max Lucado, “What matters to you, matters to God.” Don’t limit God by thinking that He doesn’t care about the small things in your life.  If He cares enough to know how many hairs are on your head, then He cares about the fact that you’re about to lose it because your children won’t pick up their toys.  He cares when you feel unappreciated for the hours you invest in a ministry.  He cares when your body is tired and sick.

So go to Him. Pray without ceasing throughout your day.

If you go to a nutritionist and want help with your food choices, the first thing they will do is ask you to keep a food journal.  They want you write down foods and times or amounts because they know that if you had to recall what you ate at the end of a week, you wouldn’t remember accurately.  Keeping a journal also helps you look and see the victories and mistakes you made that week.

A prayer journal is similar.  When you keep a journal, you have a tangible reminder of what you’ve prayed for.  You can go back and see what prayers have been prayed, when you prayed them, and how they were answered.

In his book, “Circle Maker” Mark Batterson tells the story about some people in his church who prayed during their pregnancy for their child.  At a particular time during the pregnancy, the name “Jessica” came to their minds.  They began prayer for Jessica.  They ended up having a boy, but 22 years later, their son married…Jessica.  When they looked back, they realized that the exact month God had given them the name was the month she was born.

When we keep a record of our prayers, we can look back years later and be amazed at what God has done!

I hope all these tips have given you the tools and more importantly the DESIRE to unlock the power of prayer in your life.  As with all my blog posts and videos, I like to give you a free resource so you can start putting what you’ve learned into action.  Click here to grab your copy, then just log in and download your copy today!

How about you? What’s your #1 struggle when it comes to prayer?