How to Pray: 2 Simple, Biblical Guides for Your Time With God
Is there a right or wrong way to pray?
Do you ever feel a little silly talking out loud to someone you can't see sitting across the room?
Or maybe you know you want to pray, but when you finally have a quiet moment, you don't know where to start. There is so much to pray about. Where do you even begin?
If you've ever felt this way, you're not alone.
The beautiful thing is that prayer isn't about finding the perfect words or following a complicated formula. It's simply an invitation to come before God — honestly, openly, and as you are.
Over the years, I've found a couple of simple biblical frameworks that help me when I don't quite know where to begin. They're not rules for prayer, but helpful starting points that can give our thoughts somewhere to go.
Two of them are ACTS and ASK.
ACTS
When I was a new Christian, a leader at my church once mentioned the prayer acronym A.C.T.S.
It stuck with me. Eighteen years later, I still think about it.
But what does it stand for?
ACTS stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. It's a simple prayer model built around biblical themes, but it isn't a required formula. Think of it as a guide — something that can help organize your thoughts while allowing your prayer to remain personal and sincere.
Adoration
Praise God for who He is.
Take time to worship the Lord and reflect on His character, goodness, faithfulness, holiness, and love.
“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.”
— Psalm 100:4, NKJV
You might simply pray:
Father, You are holy, faithful, and worthy of all praise.
Confession
Acknowledge your sins and bring them honestly before God.
We don't have to hide from God when we've gotten something wrong. We can confess our sin, receive His forgiveness, and ask Him to help us turn away from it.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
— 1 John 1:9, NKJV
Thanksgiving
Thank God for His goodness and what He has done.
Take a moment to reflect on His provision, His faithfulness, the people He has placed in your life, and the blessings you can recognize — even in difficult seasons.
“It is good to give thanks to the LORD…”
— Psalm 92:1, NKJV
Thanksgiving can be as simple as:
Father, thank You for Your goodness and for the ways You have cared for me.
Sometimes we don't have to look very far to find something to thank Him for.
Supplication
Bring your requests and the needs of others before God.
You know that prayer request your sister in Christ just dropped in the group text? And how you prayed for her earlier?
That's supplication.
Or that unexpected expense you need provision for?
That's supplication, too.
Pray for wisdom, strength, guidance, your loved ones, your circumstances, and the needs God places on your heart.
“…in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”
— Philippians 4:6, NKJV
There is something comforting about remembering that God invites us to bring these things to Him.
Another Simple Way to Pray: The ASK Model
Sometimes prayer is as simple as coming to God with an open heart and continuing to seek Him.
In Matthew 7:7, Jesus says:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
— Matthew 7:7, NKJV
The ASK model is a simple reminder of how we can approach God in prayer.
A — Ask
Bring your needs, questions, desires, and concerns honestly before God.
Sometimes I feel like my asking is too bold. Or that maybe the Lord doesn't want to hear one more request from me.
But Jesus tells us to ask.
We don't have to find the perfect words or make our requests sound spiritual. We can simply come to Him.
Lord, I'm asking You for wisdom, peace, provision, and guidance in this situation.
S — Seek
Seek God Himself, not only what He can provide.
As we spend time in His Word and seek Him, He can use Scripture to shape our hearts, reveal truth, and give us wisdom for what we're walking through.
Sometimes what we're seeking isn't an immediate answer to a specific question. Sometimes it's simply more of Him.
Father, help me seek Your will above my own. Show me what You want me to see and teach me to hear Your voice through Your Word.
K — Knock
Continue coming to God with faith and persistence.
This one always makes me think of Jesus' parable of the persistent neighbor in Luke 11.
Jesus describes a man whose friend arrives at his house late at night. He has no bread to give his guest, so he goes to his neighbor's house and knocks on the door.
The neighbor is already in bed with his children and doesn't want to get up. But the man keeps asking.
Jesus uses this story to illustrate persistence in prayer. He then points us to the character of God — reminding us that if earthly fathers know how to give good things to their children, how much more does our heavenly Father care for His children? (Luke 11:11–13).
I love that connection.
Knocking reminds us that we can keep coming to God. We can keep asking. We can keep seeking Him — even when the answer doesn't come in the timing or the way we expected.
ASK isn't a formula that guarantees a particular outcome. Instead, it's a beautiful reminder of Jesus' invitation to ask, seek, and knock — to keep coming to our Father and trusting Him.
You can use ACTS when you need some guidance for what to include in your prayer, and ASK when you need a reminder to keep coming to God with faith and persistence.
Neither one is a complete definition of prayer. They're simply tools that can help when you need a place to begin.
A Final Encouragement
Prayer doesn't have to look a certain way.
Maybe some days you have an hour to sit with the Lord, your Bible, and a cup of coffee.
Other days, your prayer might happen in the car, on your lunch break, while you're folding laundry, or in the few quiet minutes before everyone else wakes up.
God isn't waiting for us to create the perfect setting.
He simply invites us to come.
And one practice I've grown to love over the years is writing down my prayers.
Every so often, I'll go back through old journal entries and scribble little notes beside prayers that have been answered. Sometimes I had completely forgotten that I had asked God for something until I see it written there.
It's become a beautiful way to remember His faithfulness.
It reminds me of the Ebenezer stone in 1 Samuel 7:12:
“Thus far the LORD has helped us.”
— 1 Samuel 7:12, NKJV
Samuel set up a stone as a physical reminder of what God had done.
I love that idea.
A place to come back to.
A place to remember.
Thus far, the Lord has helped us.
And perhaps that's one of the sweetest things about writing down our prayers — years from now, we can look back and see not only what we asked for, but where God met us along the way.
If you're someone who enjoys putting pen to paper, there are simple tools that can help you keep your prayers, thoughts, Scripture, and reflections together in one place. That's actually part of why I created the Be Transformed Journal — to give you a beautiful, intentional place to spend time with the Lord and work through what He's teaching you.
No pressure to fill every page or do it perfectly.
Just a place to come, be still, write it down, and remember.
Because sometimes, we need a place to record what God is doing so that we can look back and say:
Thus far, the Lord has helped us.
In Him,
Miriam at Paper & Purpose
