30 Minute
Prayer Method
Praying for 30 minutes a day might seem like a stretch,
but what if we broke it down into something that was
practical enough to stick to? Exciting enough to want to
do? And powerful enough to change your life?
What if you walked away from prayer having spent time
praising the Lord, surrendering to His will, sharing requests and
thanksgiving, and ready to step out in obedience? Years ago I
read Dick Eastman’s book, The Hour that Changes the World. In
it, he shares 12 parts, breaking down 60 minutes of prayer into
practical segments. If I’m honest, I loved the concept, but 60
minutes felt like a big jump in my morning routine that I didn’t
think I could sustain. So recently, when I wanted to commit to
30 minutes straight of prayer each morning, I remembered this
concept and decided to make my own simplified version.
It’s only been a few weeks, but I can easily say, only second
to when I started using our prayer journal format, this is the
greatest improvement I’ve seen in my prayer life over the
last 10 years.
I know that sounds pretty bold, but it’s helped me do a few things:
• It’s rejuvenated my commitment to pray daily.
• It’s gotten me expectant for what can happen in prayer.
• It’s shifted my heart in a way I always say I want but haven’t
been experiencing naturally in my daily prayers.
• It’s helped me hear from God more consistently.
• It’s helped me incorporate more Scripture into my prayer
time.
• It’s relaxed me as I make a habit of surrender. I’m serious.
This is huge.
• It’s given me bigger eyes for the eternal (which helps
with #6).
And maybe the best news, I’m sharing it for free!
So the format is simple. There are 6 parts that make up
the 30 minutes, each lasting from 3-10 minutes each. This will
obviously vary a little, but I’ve put a time estimate as I explain
each, to help with the flow. And I literally used the lap timer on
my phone. It helped me not to jump too quickly from one section
to the next. I didn’t realize how quickly I could speed through
Adoration before this. Even though it’s on my phone, because
the timer is what’s opened up, I haven’t ever felt tempted to click
away to something else. If this feels like it’s going to be a problem
though, check out this adorable timer. If you have time to go over
30, go for it! But I know for many of us, to make it a habit we stick
to, it may help to set the time at 30 and stick close to that so you
can sustain it.
For each part, I’ll share just a little foundation for what that time
means as well as some practical ways to work through each
section. I also share some resources that may help if you need
more guidance or variety.
You might be wondering how this works with our prayer journals.
I personally have found it most helpful to NOT write for the full
30 minutes, but instead jot down a few sentences for each section.
Your journal will be a sweet overview of daily time in prayer to
reflect back on later. For some, it might help to kick start each
part of the method with written words. For others, you might
prefer summarizing what you covered in prayer during each
section with a few lines written down. Do what works for you!
If this journaling idea sounds like something you’d like to
try, don’t miss our prayer journal launch in August! We’ll
premiere our latest spiral collection at a 20% discount!
If you want to pray daily like this, we recommend the
Signature Prayer Journal which has 6 months of our
prompted format but also has space to write out prayers
near daily. If you’d like to dip your toes into writing
out your prayers, we recommend our Rhythm’s Prayer
Journal which lasts the full year and has room to write
out prayers 2-3 times a week.
Before we get started, can I just encourage you
to treat this like a low-key experiment? Don’t feel
pressure that this is some new method you have to use to
become a prayer warrior. Or that it’s something you need to
do everyday for the rest of your life. See how it works for you.
It’s been so life-transforming for me and I pray it helps you!
But maybe you tweak it a little or decide to add something to
it. Whatever you do, don’t toss your hands up in the air in utter
defeat and decide it would be better to not even try. Keep getting
back up! This is prayer. It’s 100% worth getting back up every
time we might quit. Last thing, I want to make sure to emphasize
that this method depends heavily on Scripture, so make sure to
have a Bible handy! Ok, let’s dive in.
1. P R A I S E & T H A N K S G I V I N G
I love starting my prayers by reflecting on who God is and what
He has done. Honestly, I think there’s no better way to start a
prayer than by dwelling on these things. How do we confess our
sins when we haven’t established how perfect God is? How do
we make requests to a God without knowing He is capable of
answering? How do we listen without knowing that God hears us
and responds? Praise is more important than simply listing off
some of God’s good qualities. It’s remembering that He is worthy
of all our praise. It’s acknowledging that every good and perfect
gift comes from above, so setting aside this time is not just a
symbol. It has the power to change us and our lives because
we’re talking to the God of the Universe who is all-knowing, all-
loving and all-capable.
Time : 3-5 minutes
How to: Meditate on one quality of God and expound on it
for several minutes, perhaps until you feel almost silly to go on
and on about it. Nothing is too much for God; it often takes our
hearts a minute to realize the magnitude of who we are praying
to. So don’t cut this short. If you’ve got our prayer journal, this is
as simple as using your Adoration section. At the beginning of
each month, you could find 7 or 14 verses based on that month’s
characteristic and rotate through them over the next 30 days. If
you find 7, you’ll repeat 4 times and get to solidify ideas with that
much repetition. If you like more variety, find 14. You can add
the Scripture references to a post-it and keep it in your journal
ready to go each morning. This is also the time I jot down a few
gratitudes for what God has done.
Resources:
• Val Marie Paper blog post: Prayers of Adoration
• Prayer in a Noisy World podcast: Interview with Sara Hagerty
• VMP Starter Pack (Adoration page)
• Praying through the Names of God by Tony Evan
• search your Bible app plans for “names of God” and choose a
name for each day
2. CONFESSION
Confession is an important next step because unconfessed sin
hinders our conversation with God. It doesn’t block us eternally,
but it does hinder our intimacy with Him. If you feel like you are
praying consistently but still feel a block, it may be from lack
of confession. When we skip this part, it’s as if we’re hiding the
messy closets of our hearts and only showing Him the cleaned-
up living room we just straightened for His arrival. It lacks
authenticity and it’s no wonder we might still feel distant from
the Lord. For this reason, confession is a vital part of
our prayers, but unfortunately, often one of the most neglected
parts. I never forget to ask God for things, but confession? That
takes intentionality.
We may assume dumping our sins and struggles on God can
hamper a good prayer, but it’s the very thing that draws us
closer to Him. We might be tempted to think that each session
of confession is basically heaping onto a pile of sins that God
is getting slowly tired of managing. God keeps no record of
wrongs. God is the only one who can remedy our hearts. Instead
of feeling shame coming to God, know that you are fully loved.
Reflect on His character well in the Adoration section so you’re
ready to confess well next.
Time: 3-5 minutes
How to: Reflect on the things that feel heavy on your heart. If
you’re drawing a blank, reflect on the last 24 hours or more and
be honest about actions that go against what you know to be
God’s commands for your life. This is not a place of shame. You
can (and should) grieve sin, but we don’t serve God by shaming
ourselves and dwelling more on ourselves. Set your eyes on God’s
mercy and love and lay every heavy burden at the cross.
Resources:
• Pray Confidently and Consistently, chapter 2.
• VMP blog post: 6 Things That Distance Us from God
• Prayer for Confession, from our Springboard Prayers book
Father, I come humbly to Your throne room ready to lay my
soul bare and confess the sins that so easily entangle me. I’m
overwhelmed, that as I confess my sins, You are so faithful to
forgive me. Every sin in my past, present, and future has been
nailed to the cross when You died for my sins. Let me not deceive
myself into thinking I have no sin or that my sins are at least less
than someone else’s. Such foolishness keeps me enslaved to the
darkness. The light, though it seems painful or embarrassing, brings
freedom. I pray this repentance won’t end with me walking straight
into the temptations I succumbed to, but Lord, just like the word
repentance means, help me make a radical about face and turn
from my sins. As I confess, I pray You’d create in me a clean heart
and renew a right spirit within me. Thank You for Your loving
kindness and for removing my sins so far from me. Let me not pick
them back up in guilt or shame but instead, walk in the forgiveness
Jesus died for. In Jesus’ Name, amen.
3. S U R R E N D E R
George Mueller said, “I seek at the beginning to get my heart
into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given
matter.” I remember reading these words and just thinking
how foreign this concept was to my prayers. It’s something
I think about when I am challenged with something but it’s
not something I make a point to do daily. But we need to! This
prepares our hearts for praying requests that align with God’s
will. It’s hard to pray selfish prayers when we’ve spent time
bending our will to His. Take all the time necessary to get your
heart to a place that it’s no longer seeking your own will. We do
this by reminding ourselves of how trustworthy God is. We do
this by acknowledging eternity (2 Corinthians 4:18). We do this
by recognizing our own limited understanding and how much
higher God’s ways are than our own (Isaiah 55:8-9). When we
come to this place, we’ll almost feel silly for desiring to call the
shots and instructing God to answer our prayers. What a sweet
way to enter a time of sharing with the Lord our requests!
Time: 3-5 minutes
How to: Read 2 Corinthians 4:18, Isaiah 55:8-9 or Proverbs
3:5-6. Meditate on Mueller’s quote and pray for it to be true of
you. Remember why God is worthy of our surrender. Reflect
on past answered prayers where you thought God wasn’t in
control but later realized He was. Remind yourself of your own
limited knowledge. Study Revelation and be reminded of God’s
sovereignty and eternity.
Resources:
• Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritan by Robert Elmer,
section Take My Life and Let it Be Consecrated
• Pray Confidently and Consistently, chapter 4.
• Val Marie Paper blog post: When God Seems Unfair
4. REQUESTS
The portion of prayer that we most often think of when we pray,
asking God for things. It is an absolute privilege that we can
come to God and share our desires with Him and have Him not
only hear, but also respond to us. God doesn’t always answer how
we hope, but He always answers. Let me challenge you here to
pray beyond the temporary. I don’t think it’s bad to pray for pets
or vacations or a big meeting, but go beyond that. I think we miss
out on seeing the power of God and all that He is capable of when
we spend the bulk of our time praying for safe travels and a lunch
that will nourish our bodies. If you want to be encouraged to
pray bigger prayers, read stories of past prayer warriors like E.M.
Bounds, Rees Howells, George Mueller and more. You can also
read the prayers of the puritans in Piercing Heaven, where they
commonly stretch me to pray for things I’d often not stop to think
of. As you enter this time, enter with full faith that our heavenly
Father is willing to act (within His will) on behalf of the requests
of His kids. That’s a humbling truth!
Time: 10 minutes
How to: Take a section in your prayer journal and pray through
the requests. If you don’t have one of our journals, we highly
recommend getting one. If not, each month write out your prayer
requests based on different categories to keep it organized and
take one section a day to pray through a few requests.
Resources:
• Val Marie Paper blog post: Why God Says No
• Val Marie Paper blog post: How to Pray like Paul
• Developing a Fluency of Prayer, module 1: Immerse in the
Culture
• Our prayer request organizer seen in our prayer journals
• Praying Confidently and Consistently, chapter 3 and chapter 7
5. L I S T E N I N G
Now we put ourselves in a posture of listening. This might be
the hardest part of our prayer time. We make space to hear God
speak. We first acknowledge that He does speak to us in prayer,
primarily through the Holy Spirit and through His Word. Making
this a regular part of our prayers helps us to develop a listening
ear instead of waiting for God to drop down bits of wisdom in
only earthquakes and fire. God speaks often in a whisper. And
though it may feel impossible to hear God now, give it time.
When we make space for God to speak, He will. And to be clear,
we aren’t on the hunt for some new revelation. We’re simply
training our hearts to be teachable when we’re sitting in the
presence of the King.
Time: 5 minutes
How to: Start with an open posture ready to listen. If we’re
doing all the talking, we’re asking God to shout through a
multitude of distractions. God can certainly come that way, but
often He comes in a whisper to those who want to hear from Him.
Grab your Bible. God may put a passage on your heart. Read it
and be open to what stands out on this day. Don’t overthink this
too much. If you expect to read a verse that speaks to the biggest
issue in your life, you may miss Him speaking a very simple
message like “be patient with your kids today”, “that TV show is
affecting you more than you think”, You can also take a minute
to simply take 6 deep breaths in and out. Science says that 6 deep
breaths have a calming effect and help us get out of a frantic
(often irrational) state which makes it difficult to hear from God.
Resources:
• Discerning Voice of God by Priscilla Shirer
• Developing a Fluency of Prayer, module 4 Learning Listening
Comprehension.
• Pray Confidently and Consistently, chapter 13
• Val Marie Paper blog post: Practicing Silence and Solitude.
• Podcast: A Prayer for Stillness
Time: 5 minutes
How to: If you felt God speak clearly to you in the last section,
commit now to following where He is leading. If you didn’t feel
any specific prompting, take this time to visualize what you
have planned for the day and imagine yourself obeying. It might
be picturing showing patience to your kids in the notoriously
hardest parts of the day. It might be showing strangers
compassion in the grocery store or looking for opportunities to
show love instead of burying our head in our phones.
Resources:
• Val Marie Paper blog post: The Forgotten Disciplines ​​
• Val Marie Paper blog post: How to Pray for Life Change
• Pray Confidently and Consistently, chapter 5

There you have it! Friend, if I could sit with you right now,
6. O B E Y I N G I’d share just how much this simple method has matured my
In Pray Confidently and Consistently, I shared this quote, “When prayers. I pray you find it just as encouraging. If it’s helpful,
someone asked George Mueller what the most important part of please shoot us an email and share your God stories with us!
prayer was, he reportedly said, ‘The 15 minutes after I have said,
“Amen.”’ How much would our life change if we didn’t merely talk
We want to celebrate with you!
—Val
to God but if the next moves we made were a direct reflection
of His direction? Before we end our prayer time, we want to get
our hearts in a position that is ready to obey where God leads
us throughout our days. If this feels really hard, you may want
to reflect on some of the thoughts shared in the Surrender
section. Remind yourself that God’s ways are higher. That we
are not to lean on our own understanding. That our way leads
to destruction while His ways lead to eternal life. Recognize the
value of obedience and that it is always worth following God,
even when it’s hard, instead of following our own faulty plan.
Obedience is only possible through God’s strength and the Holy
Spirit. Invite Him in to give you the power to resist temptation
and the desire to obey.
30 Minute Prayer Method
1. P R A I S E & T H A N K S G I V I N G (3-5 minutes)
Meditate on a quality of God, jot down a few gratitudes
or use the Adoration section in our prayer journal.

2 . C O N F E S S I O N (3-5 minutes)
Reflect on the last 24 hours or more, be honest about
your sin and set your eyes on God’s love and mercy.

3. S U R R E N D E R (3-5 minutes)
Get your heart ready to follow God’s will, whatever it
may be by recognizing His power and our finiteness.

4 . R E Q U E S T S (10 minutes)
Pray through a section of the requests from our prayer
journal or from a list you’ve created.

5. L I S T E N I N G (5 minutes)
With an open posture, ready to listen, read your Bible.

6. O B E Y I N G (5 minutes)
Commit now to following where God is leading.
Visualize yourself obeying.