Dear God: Learning to Pray in Your Own Words

When Pastor Debbie Green didn't know how to pray, her mother gave her a simple assignment. "Why don't you write God some letters," she said. "Say 'Dear God,' and start writing Him letters, and tell Him how you're doing."

Debbie still does it. When people ask who taught her to pray the way she does, she credits the Holy Spirit, but she's quick to add that it started with her mother's advice. "It took my prayer life so high."

That idea runs quietly through this episode of Praise House Ministries. Debbie and her husband, Pastor Billie Green Jr., usually teach on deliverance and spiritual warfare. This time they turn to the thing spiritual warfare depends on, which is prayer, and they do it out loud, for real people with real needs. Along the way they show that prayer is a practice more than a performance, and anyone can start it.

"You Don't Have to Pray Like Such-and-Such"

Many people hold back from prayer because they don't think they have the right words. Debbie hears it often: I don't know what to say. I don't pray like so-and-so.

"You don't have to pray like such-and-such," she tells them. Prayer is words, and it's what you feel.

For anyone who needs a place to begin, she recommends Germaine Copeland's Prayers That Avail Much. She first found a very old edition of the book on her mother's shelf. She has since bought copies for friends, and she and Billie have given copies to each other. She calls it a great gift for anyone who feels tongue-tied before God. Copeland, she points out, simply took the time during her own prayers to write them down. Debbie encourages listeners to do the same with the prayers God puts on their hearts.

Praying the Word Back to God

Most of the episode is prayer itself, much of it drawn from Copeland's book, and Billie explains why the source of the words matters. The prayers are rooted in Scripture, with verses behind each line. "If you pray using the Scriptures of God," he says, "these prayers are going right to Him."

His prayer for health and healing shows what that sounds like. It rests on the promise that the prayer of faith will save the sick. It thanks Jesus for bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, and it holds on to the promise that by His wounds we are healed.

The prayer is also practical. It includes a commitment to "let go all unforgiveness, resentment, anger, and bad feelings towards anyone." It also asks for truth that is both spiritual and natural: good eating habits, medication if necessary, and proper rest and exercise. Faith and common sense sit side by side.

"It's Really Not About Separatism"

What stands out most is who the prayers are for.

Debbie begins with a request from Minister Kenny Green, who is launching a Los Angeles pastors coalition through the Power of Praise Network. To her, it answers a problem she has watched for a long time: churches doing the same work in isolation. "A lot of times we're all doing the same thing, but this one is over here, that one's over there, everybody's everywhere," she says. "Sometimes we don't come together."

She prays that he will walk in God's wisdom and perfect will. She asks that he receive help from God's sanctuary and that God "blow the winds of favor" toward him from every direction.

Billie's list is more personal. He prays for Emanuel Officer, who is grieving the death of his son. He prays for the family of Barbara Taylor, his mother-in-law, who recently passed. He also prays for the drummer of Earth, Wind & Fire, who remains in a coma after heart problems. Billie has met him a few times and describes him warmly as someone who "talks to you as if he's known you for many years, like family." The two admire each other's style, and the drummer is always trying to take the shirt off Billie's back. Billie then widens the prayer to anyone in need of healing, including himself, his wife, and his family.

Debbie closes with a prayer for people looking for work during hard financial times. She prays that they won't be anxious, that they'll earn their own necessities, and that God has set before them a door wide open, "which no one is able to shut."

A Place to Start

In the middle of her prayer, Debbie mentions the station's motto: we trust God. This episode shows what that trust looks like in practice. It means honest words, borrowed from Scripture when your own run out, offered on behalf of the people around you.

If you're still not sure where to begin, take her mother's advice. Pick up a pen and write: Dear God.