Thus when someone is born again, the Holy Spirit gives that person new Fatherward desires, a new heavenward orientation whereby we cry, "Abba, Father!" In other words, all those indwelled by the Holy Spirit really want to pray. The Holy Spirit causes all the children of God to believe that God is their Father and fills them with an undying desire to talk to him.

They are direct commands. This means too little time, too many responsibilities, too many kids, too much work, too little desire, too little experience, and so on are not excuses that exempt us from the expectation to pray.

I maintain that people—truly born-again, genuinely Christian people—often do not pray simply because they do not feel like it. And the reason they don't feel like praying is that when they do pray, they tend to say the same old things about the same old things.

Martin Luther expressed God's expectation of prayer this way: "As it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray."

To pray the Bible, you simply go through the passage line by line, talking to God about whatever comes to mind as you read the text.

When there is little awareness of real need, there is little real prayer.

Every Catholic faced with a great need starts a novena. There is good precedent for this. The apostles stayed in the Cenacle for nine days after the Ascension of Jesus Christ, praying for the descent of the Holy Spirit. That was the first novena. Novenas are started nine days before the feast of some favorite saint or they can be made at any time.

Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened.

We best defend the Lord's glory by speaking first TO Him about unbelieving men rather than speaking first ABOUT Him to unbelieving men.

The Lord can accomplish much more through prayer than any teacher can through teaching, and many times He will also bring great insight within that context.

Relationship with Jesus must be kept pure and simple. Introducing you to any facet of prayer without making this clear would set you up for frustration and eventual failure. Our motivation for prayer must be relationship—communing with God.

Prayer and intercession should be all about friendship, relationship and partnering with our wonderful Father. Every one of us would rather be a partner than a hired hand.