How to Incorporate Prayer Into Your Daily Life
If you’re a Christ follower, you know prayer is a part of your walk with God. Whether you are a new believer or a lifelong Christ follower, however, there is a very big difference between knowing the importance of prayer and acting on it by incorporating prayer into your daily life.
Let us start by saying this: prayer does not have to be an intimidating or formal thing. There is no singular right or wrong way to pray as long as it involves you being in direct communication with God.
He wants to hear from you, and He doesn’t care how that’s done or what you talk about necessarily. That’s why we can call it a relationship. God truly does value a relationship with all his beloved children, and prayer is one of the best ways we can grow that relationship.
So if you find yourself here today with a goal to spend more time in prayer or to learn more about prayer, you have come to a great place! We are going to dive into the importance of prayer in our day to day lives and share some practical, easy, and non-intimidating ways you can incorporate prayer into your day today.
The Importance of Prayer
Prayer Builds Our Relationship With God
Imagine trying to have a relationship with your spouse or grow a friendship with someone but never communicating with or talking to that person. Would it really even be possible?
Let’s apply that same thought process to our relationship with Christ. In John 15:15, Jesus refers to us not as his servants but as his friends. He wants to have a relationship and a friendship with us. How can we grow in that relationship if we never talk to Him or allow Him to talk to us?
While prayer does have great theological meaning, it can be viewed as simply talking to the Lord and taking time to hear from him. When we are in communication with the Lord through intentional prayer, our relationship with him will grow.
Prayer Brings Us Protection
It is easy and simple to think about prayer as a conversation with God, but let’s not forget how powerful a conversation with God can be. Prayer is a conversation that has the power to fight our battles. We know in Ephesians 6:12 the Bible reminds us our battles are not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil.
It is through prayer that we go to war against the enemy in our lives. We ask for healing, we pray for protection, we fight for freedom , and intercede on the behalf of others.
Prayer is how we fight our battles.
Prayer Brings Life Change
Let us never forget the power that is found in God through prayer. Prayer can bring life change, whether it’s in your life or the life of others. This can happen in a moment or over time.
We see life change come in divine moments of healing or freedom, where God performs miracles in an instant, still today. But we can also see life change and freedom happen over a period of time as we diligently seek the Lord daily in prayer He will transform our hearts and the hearts of those we pray for.
Prayer Increases Our Wisdom
In James 1:5 the Bible says “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God and he will give it to you.” Prayer is a pathway God uses to impart his wisdom, discernment, knowledge, and so much more into his people. When we pray we are providing God the opportunity to increase our wisdom and equip us to live with holy discernment.
Prayer is Obedience
As Christ followers we are called to pray. Why? Because Jesus prayed. Time and time again we see Jesus in times of prayer throughout the bible. When we observe Jesus’s life we can learn practical ways we can live our lives to look more like Jesus. Prayer is one of them.
Knowing that we are called to pray makes it an act of obedience, and all the more pleasing to God.
Prayer is Worship
What comes to mind when you think of worship? Most likely it involves worship music or singing, but prayer can actually be an extension of our worship. This is especially true when we remember prayer isn’t just about coming to God with our needs or requests but should also include times of thanksgiving, honor, and praise to God. This is just as pleasing to him and uplifting to us as worship through music.
How to Incorporate Prayer Into Your Daily Life
Pick a Specific Time of Day
Morning, noon, or night, all are perfect times to pray. Committing a specific time of day to prayer will help you get intentional about your prayer life. Set guidelines for yourself to help you follow though. Maybe you can’t look at your phone in the morning before you take the time to pray. Not a morning person? That’s okay. Set a time aside to pray before you get into bed each night or even over your lunch break. It doesn’t matter when you pray, just that you take the time to do it.
Pick a Specific Activity
As you think about your day to day life, what is one thing you do every single day? Maybe it is a mindless chore like doing the dishes, or a daily commute to work, or a run outside. These daily activity can be a perfect time to commit to daily prayer. Instead of letting your mind wander, be intentional with choosing to pray during those activities.
You will be surprised how many hours of prayer you will add to your week by choosing to pray while you engage in simple daily activities.
Go Through a Guided Prayer
For many people, daily prayer can be a challenge because they aren’t sure what to pray for. If this is a roadblock for you. We encourage you to look into guided prayer options where you can find resources that will lead you through topics to pray each day. Church or the Highlands put together this prayer guide that walks you through the Lord’s Prayer and how you can specifically pray over each point within the prayer.
Start a Daily Devotional
In addition to guided prayers, a daily devotion is a great way to help keep yourself accountable to daily prayer. Devotional books will also help you link reading scripture to your prayer life, which is a powerful and important thing to do. Most daily devotionals will walk you through a daily scripture and prayer to help you apply each scripture to your life. This is a wonderful way to connect to God daily and grow in your relationship with him through both scripture and prayer.
Create a Prayer List
Sometimes it can feel like there are just too many things to pray for. How could we ever have enough time in the day to pray for all the needs that come to mind or thank God for all He has done for us. This can feel overwhelming and almost cripple our prayer life. If you have found yourself not knowing where to begin with your prayer needs, take the time to make a prayer list.
Write out everything you want to be praying for in list form. Each day as you spend time in prayer, pick one or two items from the list to pray over that way. This can help combat the feeling of overwhelm as you pray, knowing each point will be addressed. We can even find comfort in knowing God knew each item on that list before you even wrote it out.
How Church Leaders Can Encourage Prayer
The Church should never assume people know how to pray or understand the true importance of prayer in their walk with Christ. As a church leader, you should be doing everything you can to educate, equip, and encourage your congregation to be praying on their own and corporately as a church. The good news is, there are many simple ways you can do this.
Teach About Prayer
Prayer may seem like a simple and foundational concept but as Christ followers it is one of the most powerful things we can engage in. Let’s treat it as so. As a church leader, you should always be teaching about prayer. Incorporate it into sermons, teachings, and small group lesson plans. The emphasis you put on prayer as a leader will help translate the importance to those who follow you.
Give Others Opportunities to Pray
Just because you are in leadership doesn’t mean you always have to be the one who prays. When the opportunity presents itself, give others around you a chance to pray. Praying out loud around others, while it may be uncomfortable to people, helps them grow in their faith and confidence in their relationship with the Lord and equips them to share it more openly with others.
It can also be helpful to hear people other than your pastor pray out loud to confirm there is no right or wrong way to pray.
Promote Prayer Initiatives
A great way to give yourself an opportunity to teach on the importance of prayer is to organize and promote prayer initiatives. This could be done in many different ways from organizing monthly prayer points, to taking a specific period of time to pray and fast as a church. No matter how you do it, you will see greater unity and faith rise up within your church as you pray alongside each other.
Collect Prayer Requests
It is important to be in tune with the prayer needs of your church. Create a way for your congregation to submit prayer requests. Whether this is digital or a paper copy, it is powerful for people to know their pastors and leaders are praying and believing for things alongside them .
Be sure to have a process to follow up on prayer needs or provide resources. This doubles as an excellent way to care, connect with, and support your congregation beyond prayer, as well.
Be Praying Yourself
As a church leader it is incredibly important to be acting out of moral and spiritual authority. What does this mean? It means you can’t teach on prayer, or encourage others to pray, or emphasize the importance of prayer, if you aren’t praying yourself.
We believe in the power of prayer, so lets be praying our churches would catch that same belief that God would reveal himself and transform the lives of those in our churches through a greater understanding and practice of prayer.
Start Today
As you read through this, we hope you let the Lord reveal to you ways you may be excelling or needing improvement in your prayer life. We hope this equips you with practical ways for you to grow in your relationship with the Lord through prayer. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just start today and see where the Lord takes you.
Connecting Through Prayer
The next generation of Torrch is on the way! Torrch offers a space for community members to connect through prayer. Whether you’re looking to post a prayer request or support others prayer needs, Torrch is a platform that encourages prayer!