We all want to feel good about our spirituality. Then, there’s life and life gets busy. There are things that take up our time. Then some person writes a blog about praying and you want to slap them for writing something that reminds you how much you’ve failed at doing something you should be doing: praying. Seriously, Susan, as followers of Jesus, do we really need to have someone tell us we need to pray more?

Well, I’m glad you asked the question because I’d love to help!

Think about your calendar and schedule this past week. How did your “God card” do? Did you get an “A”? Are you feeling pretty proud of yourself or ashamed and ready to go hide in the bushes?

Here’s the thing: we all want to be close to God. Being close to God, though, is not always the clean, romantic story we are looking at achieving. How do we balance the sometimes stark reality in God’s story and ours? Let’s start with prayer! (I know, that answer shocked you, right?)

1. Prayer brings you closer to God. Now, this might sound obvious, but it’s true. The more you pray to God, the more you are spending time with Him and the more you begin to see things as He sees them. You tend to become like the people you hang around. The same holds true for God: the more you “hang” with God, the more He’ll rub off on you.
2. Prayer changes your focus and filters of life. As you see things as God sees things, your focus changes. You are no longer thinking of your own situations and problems, but you begin to bring others to God and talk to Him about them. You are no longer seeing people at a surface level. Nope, now you view them as God’s children and as people who simply need God’s love in their lives.
3. Prayer challenges you. As we talked about earlier, God’s ways are not always the easy paths. His ways can tend to go against the grain of society. In your time with prayer, you are challenged to be different: to be light in this world and to be more like God. It is during this time of challenge that you will grow closer to Him. Prayer allows you the time to ask God to change your heart.

As we call ourselves Christians, or followers of Christ, shouldn’t we be praying more so we can be more like Him?

Make time to pray!

© 2015 Susan M. Sims

Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net / Stuart Miles