Prayer: Chatting With God Like a Best Friend by Wycliffe Bible TranslatorsSample

Praying Like Jesus

When Jesus lived on earth, He spent a lot of time talking to God. In fact, Jesus would often go off alone, away from His disciples and the crowds of people who followed Him, to spend time with God.

Jesus set the example for how you should pray. In the four Gospels of the Bible, there are many Scripture verses that talk about Jesus going away and spending time alone talking to God (check out Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35 and Luke 5:16 for a few examples). It was just the two of them, without anyone else around to interrupt them or distract Jesus from His chat with God.

It’s important for you to have one-on-one chats with God too, not just when you’re with your mom or dad or with people at church. It might seem a little scary or even uncomfortable for prayer to be just you and God, but if you think of God as your best friend, praying is a lot easier! You can tell God about your day, like what happened in a class at school or the game you played at recess. Or you can share the moments that made you excited, sad or even angry. Thank God for all the things He’s done, like the family He’s given you, the house you live in and the clothes you wear. Ask Him to help you be loving, kind and patient with your sibling or a friend or a classmate who might bother you sometimes.

No matter what you want to talk to God about, He’s there and He’s listening. And guess what? He wants you to come and talk with Him! Imagine it like this: Whenever you see your best friend, you have lots to talk about, right? Even if you saw your friend just yesterday, you’d still find something to chat about. In fact, you might have so much to share that it feels like you don’t have enough time to tell him or her everything!

Think about prayer the same way. If God is your best friend, you should want to tell Him everything — even the smallest parts of your day. And just like Jesus, it’s important to have these chats with God away from the busyness of everything. Why? Because it’s hard to talk with someone when there’s too much noise. Think of how hard it is to talk at a loud concert or sports game! It’s just as hard to talk to God if everything around you is too loud and busy too. In a verse from Psalms in the Bible, God says to “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a, NLT). You can take time to be still, think about God and pray to Him about everything!

Think and Pray:

• What’s something you want to tell God today? Share it with Him now. He’s waiting and listening!
• Try spending even just a few minutes alone every day talking to God — maybe when you’re getting ready in the morning, or on the ride to or from school, or before you go to bed at night.