Why Should We Pray Continuously?

 

Everyone is looking down. 

At their phones!

As we walk, as we eat, as we worship, as we exercise, as we cook, as we relax, the phone is attached to support everything we do in life.  From numbing out to overly communicating, to “ask Siri” everything.

We check our phones nearly 350 times a day.

Just imagine if we checked with God nearly 350 times a day. 

Instead of Siri, Google, or Alexa, we could say “hey God”! 

Before posting our concerns or highlights to the social reel, we could get real with God.

Perhaps we’d be happier, more relaxed, clearer on our priorities, and more helpful to those in need.

In consistently being attached to our devices, are we ignoring the whispers from God? 

Are we missing the whispers of the people around us? 

Research suggests that only 30% of Americans pray SEVERAL times daily.  With staggering statistics like this, our relationships are suffering both on this earth and with our Father.  Though 78% of Americans believe there is a God, there is a significant decline when it comes to practicing and communicating with Him.

The world is noisy, busy, and in constant conflict.  Always has and always will until Jesus returns.  However, this isn’t an excuse to blend in…it’s an opportunity to be different, to be better, and to fully live.

Praying Consistently Can Empower a Holy Spirit Lifestyle

To go beyond the morning routine prayer time, bed time prayers, and meal prayers, requires a radical shift in habits. 

To pray 350 times a day means that we have to build the time and intentionality to practice.  To pray is not only to ask and give thanks, it is to praise Him for being our creator and then sitting with our thoughts and full senses waiting on His voice.  It is to stop and pray over our to-do lists.  It’s a way to stop and retrieve joy, and peace in parenting when you’ve lost your patience.  

In the book, Don’t Miss Out: Daring to Believe Life is Better with the Holy Spirit by Jeannie Cunnion, she challenges the reader with 30 benefits and attributes that the Holy Spirit can bring to our daily lives that provide a deeper intimacy with Jesus.  This book changed my entire outlook on my work, my family, and my health.  It opened my eyes that I should always be looking for Him, through the work of the Holy Spirit. 

That intimacy is amazing.

Spiritual Intimacy

Intimacy is what God wants from us.  Connecting to God requires our attention, silence, and camping out in the Living Word…the Bible.  Psalm 95:7 states “…If only you would listen to his voice today!”  This particular Psalm appeals for us to sing, praise, worship, and delight in God…and not to let our hearts be disobedient.  We are to seek God and listen to his voice, there we will find rest!

The Holy Spirit is our gift to live in us, to refill us each day, to be our help throughout each day.  But to recognize the Spirit’s work in us takes intentionality to slow down and let Him guide us in our daily walk.  This is intimacy and doing life with God.

Relational Intimacy

Intimacy with God also improves our relationships with other people.  It opens our eyes to the most important things in life…OTHERS!  Instead of somebody or a situation being an inconvenience, it can now be reframed as an opportunity when seeking God in the situation. 

Seeing the spiritual purpose helps our physical purpose. Intimacy is built through face-to-face, eye-to-eye interaction which are the windows to the heart and the soul.

It’s with the eyes that can communicate love, fear, joy, or anxiety.  It’s through the returning eyes that can discern and offer empathy, advice, and consultation.

It’s through this shared relational interaction that we can take on someone’s burdens or triumphs to bond at that moment.  The necessary vulnerability of an intimate relationship builds and strengthens trust and eradicates loneliness.

Personal Intimacy

Intimacy with God conquers our fears and eradicates shame.  God’s eternal love for us can shatter our deepest and darkest fears. 

In conversations with a significant amount of friends and clients over the last year, the common roadblock to life and career decisions is FEAR.

• Fear of failure
• Fear of the unknown
• Fear of the past
• Fear of imposture syndrome

…the list goes on as fear has a way of creating shackles of our past to our future.  Where we have failed in the past is where we can identify shame. 

This type of paralyzing fear can be overcome by becoming truthful with ourselves.  Through the practice of journaling, sitting with our thoughts, meditation, and prayer, we can unpack our fears, set attainable goals for our future, unlock our identity crisis, and walk in freedom about WHO WE ARE. 

Living an authentic life is freedom.

Fear is a construct in our minds that typically has a 9% chance of playing out. 

Living life on going through the motions is not intimacy!  Having an awakened heart, mind, and soul to find joy in our daily walk is what we were created for.

Changing our Device Dependencies to Heavenly Dependencies

Praying 350 times a day is a very lofty goal that the majority of us will fail at doing.  But one goal we can attempt is to radically reduce the 350 times we pick up our phones and replace each successful pass with a small prayer.  Here are a few other practical ways to start more in harmony with God

1. Recommit to leaving the phone in another room during devotions, cooking, sleeping, or eating.
2. Turn off email alerts, social media alerts, and news alerts throughout the day.
3. Go on airplane mode during times in the day that is scheduled for focused work.
4. Set a measurable goal of minimized screen time.
5. Put prayer time on the calendar (3 times a day like Daniel).
6. Attempt to kick start this new habit by going on a short 16-hour or 24-hour fast.
7. Habit Stack!  Choose a routine you do daily that doesn’t involve prayer and start to include prayer. Washing dishes, brushing teeth or exercising.
8. Carve out more white space in our calendar.
9. When emotions, feelings, or internal conflicts arise, stop and ask God to help and speak to you before you speak to someone.  Journaling is a life altering practice to support self-awareness and goal setting.
10. Go for multiple daily walks.

Now imagine a world where we spend more time looking up, instead of looking down.