When you think of prayer... what comes to mind?

Do you picture yourself blurting out all the things you need, giving several reasons why you think you deserve them and reminding God what you've asked for over and over in case He didn't hear you the first time?

Or do you think of waking up at the crack of dawn to recite a bunch of thees and thous while trying to make yourself sound "worthy enough" for God to listen to you?

Praying those kinds of prayers day after day, night after night... well, it starts to feel robotic and maybe even exhausting.

It's no wonder! Think about one of your friendships for a minute. If all you did was phone up your friend, rattle off a list of things you wanted them to do and then hang up, how would that relationship go? It would probably get stale pretty fast.

A real relationship needs back and forth conversation. There's some talking and listening going on. Prayer is a dialogue too, and you're free to be 100% real with God. So... if you wouldn't use thees and thous when talking to a close friend, you don't need them when talking to God either! He made you the way you are and He wants the real you.

And here's the other thing—when it comes to the needs in our lives, prayer isn't about convincing God to give us something. He already gave us the answer, and that answer is YES to all He's promised us! (See 2 Corinthians 1:20.) Because of Jesus, every promise is already yours.

So who needs convincing? Your heart does.

Our hearts are pretty incredible things, and they're listening to the words we speak. When we say something over and over, it's like a song that gets stuck in our heads—except it's actually a belief that forms in our hearts.

Where do we begin? The first step is to know what's in the Word. To help you get started, we want to share something called Walk in the Word. It's a monthly collection of personalized declarations based on different verses. You can download it, print it out, hang it on the wall or stick it in your Bible.

This month's Walk in the Word is all about—you guessed it—prayer! Click here to download.

Speaking these declarations out loud can become part of your prayer time—your conversation with God. As you begin to pray this way and plant the Word in your heart, confident faith rises up on the inside.

Whenever a challenge arises, your mind will go back to the promises. You'll be able to say, "Whatever I ask for in prayer, I believe I've received it—and it is mine. Jesus has qualified me for all of God's promises" (Mark 11:24)!

P.S. If you'd like to get one of these collections every month, you can sign up for our emails. At the beginning of each month, we'll send you great resources to build your faith, including Walk in the Word. Click here to sign up!