By Rob Globke

Every hockey player needs to be a praying hockey player.

Why?

For one…
It is one of the chief means by which we grow closer to the Father. A chance for us to communicate with the one who created us and sent his Son to die for us. That alone should draw us to our knees. We get to talk to the One who spoke the world into being. The One who holds all things together. The One who has the power to raise the dead! Not only do we get to talk to this God. We are loved so much by Him he will always listen. He longs to communicate with us. How cool is that?!?! He is never too busy and you are never too small for him to listen.

For two...
If the above reason doesn’t make you want to spend some time in prayer, then perhaps we should stop to think about the truth that prayer is an act of humility. Humility is something we are commanded to be. (John 13:1-17) Hockey players seem like some of the most humble people around. I once heard someone say that, “Hockey players are the most down to earth athletes of all the sports I know.” Yeah, maybe that’s true. Maybe most of us don’t walk around looking for attention with our chests puffed up. But, that doesn’t mean we are not filled with pride. Sometimes, being proud is thinking we can do it on our own. Sometimes, being proud is failing to acknowledge you don’t have it all figured out. Prayer is a practice which admits we need help. It is an admission that we can’t do it on our own. And in my experience, this is something hockey players don’t often like to admit!

So, we know prayer is important, yet most of us probably could confess that it’s something we really struggle with. We know it’s vital, but we can’t always seem to grasp it. It’s mysterious and unknown… so we stay away. It can feel like wasting time in an activity of inactivity when we could actually be DOING something productive instead… so we don’t make time. It’s an admission we really can’t manage on our own… so we trudge on spinning our wheels. It’s intimidating because we don’t know how to start or where to begin… so we just never even try.

We are good at making excuses. Poor at follow through. We know we should, but don’t. This is not good enough. Every hockey player needs to be a praying hockey player. In light of this, below is a list of 5 little tools to help you start becoming hockey people who pray.



3 R’s of praying Scripture
This was borrowed from the following blog who borrowed it from a man named Ben Patterson. It is a method which helps you take a passage of scripture and work through it in prayer using three words. They are:

 

• Rejoice - How can I rejoice about how God is and what He has done based on this text?
• Repent - How can I repent of my sin based on what I find out in this text?
• Request - How can I ask God to help me be more like Him and grow closer to Christ in light of this text?

 

5 P’s of the Lord’s Prayer - 5 P’s
I’m not quite sure that I remember where I picked this up, but you can break the Lord’s Prayer into five different categories all starting with the letter “P”. This gives a pretty good structure as a template for our prayer time.

 

• Praise - How can I praise my Heavenly Father today?
• Purpose - How can I be a part of what God is doing in the world?
• Provision - How can God help meet my needs today?
• Pardon - How can God forgive me today?
• Protection - How can my Heavenly Father keep me from going astray?

PRAY
Another similar structure to the 5 P’s above is to take the word PRAY and use it as an acronym for the following:

 

 

• Praise - What is one or two things I can praise God for right now?
• Repent - Do I need to ask forgiveness of anything?
• Ask - What are some things that are on my mind and bothering me?
• Yield - How can I set aside my own priorities and join into God’s?

 

ACTS
An absolute classic which many people already know. It’s not opening to the book of Acts in the Bible. Although, that would be good and a nice thing to do from time to time. No, the ACTS method is an acronym which stands for:

 

• Adoration / Acknowledge - What can I praise or acknowledge God for?
• Confession - What can I ask forgiveness for?
• Thanksgiving - What can I thank Him for?
• Supplication - What can I ask Him to help me with? OR Who can I pray for?

 

PUSH
When all else fails, just simply PUSH…

• Pray Until Something Happens!!