Bob Hostetler’s Tips for One-Word Prayers

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Hi Guideposts. My name is Bob Hostetler. I’m a blogger and author and literary agent and preacher.

I am asked every once in a while how I come up with my ideas in writing about prayer and especially when it comes to one-word prayers, and that’s been a process, I think.

I haven’t always been a praying man, but then over the years, I came to cultivate prayer as an ongoing conversation, not something with strict parameters and boundaries and timelines and that sort of thing, and that opened up all new possibilities to me. And when that happened, then I began to pray short prayers throughout the day, spurred often by events.

I would see somebody and I would say, “Lord, help,” or I would come across a situation that would cause me to cry out in my heart, sometimes with my voice, “Lord, have mercy.” And over time I realized that sometimes one word was sufficient to point my heart toward God and to open that avenue of prayer.

Sometimes one word is all I could muster, and so I would pray, just one word, sometimes “comfort,” sometimes “come,” sometimes “peace,” “shalom.” And that has been a real blessing and exercise for me in realizing God is always ever-present and He’s always waiting to hear and answer prayer.

And so just a word or two sometimes is enough not only to to make that connection—certainly, He’s always waiting for that connection—but it’s my mind that must make that connection and call out to Him, and very often, one word does it.

And so that’s, as best as I can recall, how this came about as an ongoing, as a constant part of my prayer practice is to pray those short prayers constantly throughout the day. Just one word turns my heart toward God, reminds me that He is there and reminds me that He’s always ready to help.