If you ever feel like you don't have time/brain-space/energy/room to pray, we can relate. Day job, family life, church ministry, the days all run together. But it's in these busy seasons that we especially need to pray.
So in the interest of time, and to be as helpful as possible, here are five tips for when you don't have time to pray.
1. START WITH WORSHIP.
Worship adjusts our perspective. If we start out with prayer, our words are often stressed and heavy. But when we begin with worship, we remind our spirits of the God we serve. We celebrate His goodness and fix our gaze on Him over our circumstances. Then when we start to pray, our words are expectant and faith-filled. If you're looking for some songs to add to your worship playlist, these are a few current favorites:
2. Use the time you have.
Don't limit "quiet time" to a full hour of alone time with God with a Bible, a notebook, and a silent home before the sun comes up. If that's what works for you, great! But if your time of prayer in this season begins with 3 minutes on the floor of your bedroom closet before you scrounge around for a semi-clean pair of jeans, do it! Spend the 3 minutes! God's not discounting that time, He wants to spend it with you.
P.S. Time with God doesn't need to be in the morning either. You may find it helpful to start with some time in the morning, but you may have lengthier blocks of study and prayer in the evenings.
3. CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION.
1 Thessalonians 5:16 encourages us to pray without ceasing. So for us, that means continue your conversation with the Lord throughout your day. Talk in the shower, in the car, in the grocery checkout line—although not out-loud in the store ’cause that would be weird. 🙂
P.S.S. If you’re not sure how to pray, check out this post: How to Pray: 5 Steps for Beginners
4. MAKE IT PRACTICAL.
We're getting super granular here with some practical steps to implement on a daily basis. Use these to help you brainstorm what practical steps make most sense for you.
- You can use a worship song as an alarm clock to help wake up thinking of Jesus. Usually I end up hating whatever noise I set as my alarm, BUT we've been using “Fall Afresh” Jeremy Riddle as a phone alarm for several months now, and we still love it. Something about the beginning lyrics really prompts our spirit in the right direction: “Awaken, my soul, come awake.”
- You can spend time literally on your face. Something about the intentional posture of kneeling before the Lord in humility and reverence helps to focus your worship and prayer. Yes, you can pray while washing your hair and driving, but we set-aside time daily in consecrated stillness before God.
- You can use a prayer app called “Echo.” It’s free and lets you set prayer reminders for specific days or times of day. If you don’t want to use that app, simply set reminders on your phone, or put a time slot in your planner that’s your coffee date with the Lord.
- Memorize a verse that will prompt you to connect with God.
For us, it’s eight words from Mark chapter 10. In this passage, Jesus is heals blind Bartimaeus. Jesus hears Bartimaeus crying out for mercy and tells those with him to call Bartimaeus over to them. This is what they say: “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.”
And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. (Mark 10:49–52, ESV)
We love this passage because of their words to the blind man, and his response to Jesus. When you are slow to pray, repeat this verse to your heart. In this season, when it can feel difficult to find the resources in your day to allocate to prayer, when you have a heart crying out for mercy and provision in your need, you can spring up and come to Jesus.
5. TAKE HEART. GET UP; JESUS IS CALLING YOU.
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