What Does it Mean to Yield When You Pray?

You may be familiar with the P-R-A-Y acronym.

"P" stands for Praise which is the first step in effective prayer.  Praising God for Who He is, how He reveals Himself, and How He loves you are good reasons to praise Him.

"R" stands for Repentance, which is the second step in effective prayer.  It's about confessing and repenting of anything that has come between you and God.  This includes things such as attitudes that are offensive to God of which we may not even consciously be aware.

"A" stands for Ask, which first includes asking God to forgive you for everything that you have thought, said, or done that did not please Him.  You are then in a position to ask Him for the desires of your heart.  But when you ask, make sure your request will glorify Him, that it's consistent with His Word, and that it will bring you true joy.

"Y" stands for Yield.  The question is: How do you practice yielding to God when you pray?  Yielding is when you stop talking, and wait, listen, and seek to hear from God.  Try saying, "God, is there anything You want to say to me?  Do You have any instructions for me?  Is there anything You want me to change?"  Then silently wait for Him to speak to you.  As you assume this posture of being yielded and waiting quietly before Him, you will be surprised at some of the things that He brings to your attention: "You need to give your brother a call and tell him you love him,"  "Offer to help your neighbor with his garage sale and build a bridge over which the gospel can travel," "Apologize to your co-worker for loosing your temper at work last week," and "Spend more time praising Me."

Yielding is a critical component to our prayer life and it's too often overlooked.  As the great hymn 'Have Thine Own Way' puts it, "Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after Thy will. While I am waiting, yielded, and still."