Psalm 18 gives some prayer guidelines to this end.
How I love you, Lord!
You are my defender.
The Lord is my protector;
he is my strong fortress.
My God is my protection,
and with him I am safe.
He protects me like a shield;
he defends me and keeps me safe.
I call to the Lord,
and he saves me from my enemies.
Praise the Lord! – Psalm 18:1-3 GNT
What a great way to start a prayer – with a summary of praise. To declare my love for God first thing and to hear Him respond with love to me makes my prayer time very special. It becomes my celebration theme – God responds and delivers.
The danger of death was all around me;
the waves of destruction rolled over me.
The danger of death was around me,
and the grave set its trap for me.
In my trouble I called to the Lord;
I called to my God for help.
In his temple he heard my voice;
he listened to my cry for help.
Praise flows because of the memories of struggles – struggles turned over to God when I asked Him for help. In calling out, He heard.
There is something to be said about making the decision to rely on God. It becomes second nature in moments of distress to find myself on my knees before Him.
I am reminded to pray for spiritual growth, and if that means a surrendered, faithful, loyal and obedient heart, than that is what I want. I trust Him to give it to me.
It will mean I will spend time asking for forgiveness and asking God to strengthen me and give me courage to do what is right.
It will mean that I will ask God to keep revealing His purpose in His Word, to allow me to see what I should do and to make my path clear.
It means I can be confident that God will make a way and that will be both victorious and successful.
“The complainers in each situation are regenerate children of God (regeneration was an Old Testament fact, though the theology of it was not made known until Christ came) and their complaints are fundamentally prayers for deliverance from evil and for the fulfillment of promises of protection, provision and relational enrichment that God himself gave. The plea embedded in their complaints is that joyful fellowship with God may be restored and present pain become a thing of the past. Feeling with their minds and thinking with their feelings, their emotions of distress are as vivid and intense as are their perceptions of current disaster due to God’s noninterventions. In terms of direction and intention, their lament and complaints to God are acts of petition and promise-claiming, in a very strong form.” – J.I. Packer
The Practice of Prayer 