Recently Pastor Jon shared an acronym he had learned as a prayer model. Unfortunately, it doesn’t spell anything familiar, so I didn’t remember it. I had to go back and look. It goes like this:
A Adoration
W Wait
C Confession
I Intercession
P Petition
I am used to praying using a different model:
A Adoration
C Confession
T Thanksgiving
S Supplication
But I thought I would give AWCIP a try.
The biggest eye opener was Wait. I had never done that. How do I keep my mind still? How long do I wait? How do I keep random thoughts from invading?
The other thing I noticed was that there was not a section for Thanksgiving and that is my favorite part of the ACTS method. So I added it to the Adoration segment. It was also interesting that Intercession and Petition were separate. I took it to mean that Intercession was for others and Petition was for myself. I’m not sure that’s right but it made sense to me.
In all of this, my takeaway from this is that there are different ways of approaching God in prayer and it can benefit us to follow different models of prayer. This was a learning experience for me. The biggest change and challenge was the Wait portion. I confess I once fell asleep during the Wait portion, but mostly it has been a challenge to quiet my mind. The bottom line is that I am praying regularly, no matter the model. It can be helpful to find tools that will help support you in having a well-rounded and regular prayer life.