J-O Y spells Prayer

After reading that title, you may think I am out of my mind! Yes, I actually do know how to spell the word “prayer,” so please don’t go searching for my grade school teachers to let them know what a bad speller I am. Prayer is spelled
J-O-Y.

Have you ever noticed your prayer life becoming monotonous? At our house, we catch ourselves saying the same prayers over and over. Most of the time we say, “Thank you for this food,” or “Thank you for this day,” or “Thank you for dying on the cross for our sins.” None of these prayers are wrong, but when we pray the same words all the time, the words can start to mean less to us.

You’ve probably heard of the acronym JOY – “Jesus, Others, You spells JOY!” It means that putting Jesus first, others second and yourself last will result in a joyful life. It’s a good concept to adopt in life, and it also works in your prayer life. I decided to try it with my kids.

I explained that we were going to change our prayers to include Jesus first (thanking & praising Him for one of His many attributes), others second (praying for someone else) and then you (they could pray for a request about themselves). Two sets of eyes stared blankly back at me. They were underwhelmed with my new prayer method.

I could see I was going to have to help them with this. When we started praying with the new JOY method, the most challenging part was thinking of the attributes of God. Thank goodness for the book of Psalms! We found many words we could use to praise God – He’s merciful, He’s righteous, He’s our creator, He’s our protector – just to name a few!

Changing the way we pray has really helped to focus our attention on God and to learn more about His attributes at the same time. It has also been good to pray for others before we pray about ourselves. Using the JOY method has been a good change for our family. We are all finding out more about God and His characteristics, which seem to be limitless!

Now without looking it up in the dictionary or thinking about what you learned in school, how do you spell prayer?

Prayer: God, there are so many of your qualities and traits that go unnoticed unless we search for them in Your Word. Please forgive us for the times when we are stagnant in our prayer life. We want to give You the praise and honor You deserve, and we want to do it creatively. Thank you for the many facets of Your being – You are such an amazing God!

Scripture: Choose a Psalm that highlights God’s qualities