Having trouble praying?

At the beginning of a new year, we are wont to make resolutions.  This will change.  This time.  It really will.

Yet statistics I came across a few years ago have said that within one month, 45% of all people have not kept their resolutions.  And only 19% keep their resolutions for as long as two years.

That sounds true according to my experience.  And probably yours, too.  (In fact, I would have thought the percentages of those keeping their resolutions would be even lower).

One reason that we don’t keep our resolutions is because of a lack of a plan.  And if part of your resolutions included deepening your prayer life this year, John Piper and the folks at Desiring God have some help for you about what to pray.  Often our failure to pray is not from a conviction that we don’t need to pray, but from an inadequate plan for how we will pray.  So, here are some tips on what to pray for the people in your life:

• A Good Start on Prayer for 2009
• 10 Reasons to Pray the Scriptures
• A List of Everything They Prayed for in the New Testament
  
• 9 Ways to Pray for Your Soul
• What to Pray for Our Children

And if you are discouraged about a perceived lack of progress in your prayer life, then you are in the company of a host of others, including John Newton.