It is good to start every day with prayer when the day is fresh and new. If you pray every morning, are you getting the most out of your prayers? These tips might help you do just that!
In order to receive the greatest benefit from your morning prayer, you might try these tips and hints to make your morning prayer more meaningful.
- Pray with Intention
- Pray in Quiet
- Start with Gratitude
- Maintain Humility
- Pray for your Community
Below, I have expanded an explanation of these five things you can do to assist you in praying more meaningfully.
Pray with Intention
This might seem obvious but all of us, at one time or another, say our prayers because we are think we are supposed to or because we have somehow concluded that praying itself is more important than the content of our prayers.
If we take a moment and collect our thoughts before we pray, we can focus on those specific aspects of gratitude or supplication that we intend in our particular prayer.
In his book, How to Pray: Reflections and Essays, C.S. Lewis poses the question whether our prayers depend on how deeply we feel them. I believe that if we pray with intention, with deliberate objectives, if we have a purpose in mind when we pray, it can assist us in focusing our prayers and in making them more serious and perhaps, even more valid.
Pray in Quiet
Jesus, himself, admonishes us to pray in private, not inn the presence of others “like the hypocrites.”
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
This does not mean. of course, that group prayer is not acceptable. Jesus is saying that our personal prayers are between us and God and that praying in the public eye can be seen as boastful.
He admonishes us to pray in quiet and it makes sense that praying in a quiet environment can be more helpful than trying to compete with outside stimuli like the phone or with other distractions.
Start with Gratitude
Your prayer today might be to ask for some important thing for yourself, for your family or for a friend or relative who might have specific needs. No matter what the intent of your prayer, begin by showing gratitude for the blessings you have received in your life.
Be thankful. Life can be difficult but when we express gratitude, it can put our minds and souls in an attitude that can allow us to receive additional blessing.
No one has ever effectively prayed out of anger or out of entitlement and privilege. Bring your prayer of gratitude, of thankfulness in a feeling of sincere thanksgiving.
Maintain Humility
We do not pray to our peers or equals. We pray to the Creator, the Redeemer, the Emancipator. We must come to our conversations with our great humility, with obedience, not with timidity, but with a modest and unpretentious heart.
If we come with a humble heart and begin our prayer with passivity toward God, we place ourselves in an attitude of reception.
We cannot receive the Grace we seek if we are not in the proper attitude to receive it.
Pray for your Community
You might have a need that you feel can be met by the power of prayer. This is one of the reasons that we pray. In praying for our own needs, it is vital to include prayers for the needs of your family, your friends, your town or city, your state, your nation.
We are all a part of various communities, large and small.
Praying for ourselves and not including prayers for others makes us see things from a selfish perspective and one of the most powerful things we can do is to include our communities in our prayers.
How we can ensure that we receive the desired benefits from our prayers.
I believe that if we follow these steps I have outlined, we can make our prayers more effective and that the benefits we receive from praying will be seen to increase.
There are so many ways to improve your prayer experience. If you have found other things that help you, please share in the comments below. Let our readers hear from you.
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