Answers · Prayer & Hearing God
How do I pray when I don't know what to say?
You are not the first to sit down to pray and find no words — grief, weariness, and not knowing what to ask are as old as prayer itself. The Bible treats that condition as known, and provided for: when we do not know what to pray, the Spirit of God prays in us.
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
— Romans 8:26 (KJV)
So the first word to the wordless is: begin anyway. Prayer was never measured by its polish. When the disciples asked to be taught, Jesus gave them a manner, not a script — "After this manner therefore pray ye" (Matthew 6:9) — a pattern of honouring God, asking for daily bread, forgiveness, and keeping. And underneath the manner sits the priority: prayer is not one religious duty among many. In the library's preaching on the subject, Kenneth Carpenter puts it as plainly as it can be put — prayer is the number one priority of the Christian life — which means the answer to a dry season is not to pray better first, but to keep praying at all, and let the Spirit carry what words cannot.