Questions on prayer

2. Is it OK to start a prayer and then pick it up later?
Fascinatingly this question says quite a lot about our attitude to prayer, and in turn to God. God does not legalistically have an acceptable format to prayer, it must not be a certain length or in a certain style, it is his loved and redeemed children speaking to him.

Prayer is like anything else it becomes easier the more you pray, it is also important to study the Bible and stand on the shoulders of those whose prayers God has kept there for us to learn by.

It is OK to start a prayer and then pick it up later, but my little warning with that would be to ask yourself if this is a repeated pattern and what it shows about your prayer life and relationship with God as a priority. It may be that you can't avoid the distraction or it maybe that you have simply gotten into the habit of looking for distraction. It may be a chance to evaluate how, when and where you pray so that you can carve out for yourself some time to set aside without the chance of distraction.

3. Is there anything we shouldn't pray for?
Yes, we shouldn't pray for God to do things against his character or against his revealed will. We shouldn't pray for opportunities to sin. Interestingly the bible gives us examples of prayers not to pray - Jonah 4 is just one such example, and yet we see there the amazing grace of a loving father who doesn't answer the prophets prayer to be put to death but graciously teaches him about his misunderstandings of God's character.

There are things we ought not to pray for though we ought to pray about those things, let me give an example. Firstly one that is very blatant; the Bible clearly says marriage is sacred and adultery is wrong, it would wrong to pray for the opportunity to commit adultery, but it would be right to pray to God to help you flee the attraction you may be having for someone other than your spouse. There are lots of more subtle variations on this - for example we ought not to pray that we would have vengeance on someone who wrongs us, but pray that we would be able to forgive them trusting that God is judge.

Prayer is a privilege of the blood bought people of God who are given the joyfully relationship whereby they can approach the almighty God of the universe as their father.