It doesn’t matter where, when or how long you pray – just that you do.
1st of a 4-part teaching series
by Connie Peters
Christians agree that it’s important to pray. But most believe they don’t pray enough or as efficiently as they should. In order to invest time and energy in prayer, you have to show yourself that prayer matters and that it’s worth your time to actually do it. On the flip side, you need to acknowledge that problems will result from not praying.
The February Prayer 101 series discusses four things you need to know to motivate yourself to pray: 1) Prayer is loving communication with God; 2) God speaks, too; 3) God listens and responds; and 4) Lack of prayer causes problems.
Loving communication with God
If you’re like most people, you spend a lot less time in prayer than you think you should. Like everyone else, you have 24 hours in a day and must decide how to spend it. You want to use your time to the best advantage, including taking time to pray, but often you end up wasting time on unimportant or even harmful things such as excessive TV watching, laziness, or overeating.
Why? Because there’s a payoff. You do those things for pleasure, peace, relaxation, escape or other benefits. If you want to pray more, you have to identify the payoffs of prayer and conversely the disadvantages of not praying. You need to show yourself that praying is actually worth doing.
Prayer is a complicated topic. Why you pray, how you pray, when to pray, where to pray, hindrances to prayer, when God doesn’t answer – all are topics of thousands of books. But they all agree that you need to pray.
This is because, remarkably, God wants you to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength – in other words, with all you’ve got. And He’s not asking you to do anything He doesn’t do. God loves you so much that He sent His Son to die for you. You are part of His family. And in any loving relationship, communication is a key factor. But you need to get rid of any preconceived ideas of what exactly constitutes prayer.
You may not feel you have prayed unless you’re on your knees, read a certain amount of scriptures, or pray at the same time every day. Yet there are many ways to communicate with the Lord:
- Language
- Songs
- Drama
- Poetry & writing
- Art
- Sculpture
- Dancing
- Body language
- And (with a God who can read your mind) your thoughts and attitudes.
Kathy nearly drove herself to distraction worrying about whether or not she’d keep her job or be able to pay her bills. One day, she heard a Christian author on TV say that you can pray anywhere, anytime. Kathy realized she had been thinking she had to lock herself away and spend a lot of time in prayer. She stopped right there, confessing her worry as a lack of trust. She asked God for forgiveness and help. Instantly, her burden was lifted and she felt at peace.
This week, lay aside the guilt you may feel for not putting in the allotted time in whatever you decide “counts” as prayer. Remember:
- There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1)
- He already paid the price to declare you righteous (I Corinthians 6:20)
He’s not up there with a stopwatch counting all the minutes you put in prayer…and when you reach a certain quota you get a gold star up in Heaven.
The Lord went into a lot of trouble to bring you into His spiritual family and He longs to communicate with you. Imagine a Mom and Dad sitting down with their kids and saying, “You have to spend one hour a day with us or you’re not a good family member.” Parents simply want to communicate with their children – whenever and for however long –because they love them and want what’s best for them.
God loves you and wants to connect with you…whether you’re standing, sitting, kneeling, or dancing; whether you’re in a closet, a church, or in a crowded grocery store; whether at morning, noon or night.
Motivate yourself to pray – and you will develop a deeper relationship with the God of the Universe who passionately loves little old you.
Connie Peters is a writer for the Vantage Point daily devotional series. She is a professional writer (27 years) and caregiver (10 years) who lives in Cortez, CO. Married with two children, Connie and her husband Loren host two adults with developmental disabilities.