10 good reasons to make prayer a priority

Prayer is an essential part of Christian life. But how does prayer benefit us and why do we pray? Some people pray because they are commanded (Muslims); others pray to offer gifts to their many (Hindu) gods. But we all pray for strength and forgiveness, to wish mutual blessings and to be one with the Lord our God.

01
Prayer brings us closer to God

Prayer time is our private encounter with God. We can spend time in church, we can read our Bibles and even have a bunch of devotionals near our bed, but there is no substitute for individual time with the Lord.

Prayer is simply talking to God and listening to his voice. Time spent in a relationship with him is reflected in every other part of our life. No other human being knows us like God, and keeps all our secrets. You can be yourself with God. He loves you, whatever happens.

02
Prayer brings divine help

Yes, God is everywhere and omniscient, but sometimes he wants us to ask for help. Prayer can bring divine help into our lives when we need it most. This also applies to others. We can pray for loved ones to receive the help they need.

We can pray for divine peace. God's intervention often begins with a simple prayer of trust. Before praying, think about people who need God's help, including yourself. What are you struggling with in life? Where hope seems lost and only God's intervention can redeem the situation? God will move mountains when we ask for his help in prayer.

03
Prayer keeps our selfishness in check

By nature we humans are selfish. Prayer helps keep our self-absorption in check, especially when we pray for others.

Often God allows us to see our true self more clearly through prayer. Think about how often our prayers are centered on ourselves compared to those we love or to other believers in the world. When we add Christian companions to our prayers, we will become less selfish in other areas as well.

04
We get forgiveness through prayer

When we pray, we open ourselves to forgiveness. It is obvious that there are no perfect people in this world. You can strive to be the best Christian you can be, but occasionally you will slide up again. When you fail, you can go to God in prayer to ask for his forgiveness.

During our time in prayer, God can help us forgive ourselves. Sometimes we struggle to let ourselves go, but God has already forgiven our sins. We tend to beat ourselves up too much. Through prayer, God can help us free ourselves from guilt and shame and start liking us again.

With God's help, we can also forgive others who have hurt us. If we do not forgive, we are those who suffer from bitterness, resentment and depression. For our own good and for the benefit of the person who has hurt us, we must forgive.

05
Prayer gives us strength

God fills us with strength through prayer. When we feel the presence of God in prayer, we are reminded that he is always with us. We are not alone in our struggles. When God gives us a direction, our faith and trust in him become stronger.

Often God changes our perceptions and our perspective on a situation as we pray about it. We begin to see our problems from God's point of view. Knowing that God is on our side gives us the strength and the ability to resist everything that comes against us.

06
Prayer changes our attitude

Prayer demonstrates our willingness to be humiliated every day and to depend on God to meet our needs. We admit our weakness and our need by turning to God in prayer.

Through prayer, we see the vastness of the world and how small our problems are in comparison. As we thank and praise God for his goodness, with gratitude in our hearts, our problems begin to seem trivial. Evidence that once seemed enormous becomes small in light of the difficulties that other believers are facing. As we pray in faith, we find God changing our attitudes about ourselves, our situation and others.

07
Prayer inspires hope

When we are in landfills, prayer gives us hope. Placing our problems at Jesus' feet shows that we trust him. You know what's best for us. When we trust in God, it fills us with the hope that all is well.

Having hope does not mean that things will always go as we want, but it means that we want God's will to be done. In fact, something better could happen than we can imagine. Furthermore, prayer helps us to see things from God's perspective, and we know that God wants good things for his children. This opens up all kinds of opportunities that we may never have seen before.

08
Prayer reduces stress

This world is full of stress. We are constantly bombarded with responsibilities, challenges and pressures. Stress will surround us as long as we live in this world.

But when we put our problems at the feet of God in prayer, we can feel the weight of the world falling from our shoulders. The peace of God fills us when we know that he listens to our prayers.

God can calm the storm in your life even when you are in the middle of it. Like Peter, we must keep our eyes on Jesus so as not to sink under the weight of our problems. But when we do that, we can walk on water.

Every new day, move your pressures on God in prayer and feel that your stress levels decrease.

09
Prayer can make us healthier

Numerous scientific studies have shown that regular prayer is an important factor in living longer and staying healthy.

This article in Richard Schiffman's The Huffington Post describes in detail the well-documented link between prayer and good health, both emotional and physical: “It doesn't matter if you pray for yourself or for others, pray for a cure for illness or for peace in the world, or simply sit in silence and calm the mind: the effects seem to be the same. A wide variety of spiritual practices have been demonstrated to relieve stress levels, which are one of the main risk factors for disease. "

Studies have also shown that people attending religious services tend to live longer. So keep calm and keep praying.

10
Prayer can help us understand ourselves better

When we spend time in a conversation with God, we listen to the way we talk about ourselves. We can hear the negative things we say about ourselves along with our hopes and dreams and how we want our lives to reveal themselves.

Prayer offers us the opportunity to better understand who we are in Christ. It shows us our purpose and gives us indications when we need to grow. Demonstrate how to have more trust in the Lord and pour out his unconditional love. Through prayer, we see the person God sees when he looks at us.