How To Connect Prayer With Everyday Life
If you’re Catholic, I’m sure you’ve already experienced the many ways of praying that are seemingly a waste of time. I’m talking about routine practices that don’t seem to actually connect prayer with life, like spending 30 minutes praying a speedy group rosary out loud, all the while fighting the distractions in your imagination about what you’re going to cook for dinner, the shopping you’ll be doing in preparation for it, and your child’s need for a new pair of shoes.
You might be left wondering: “Will the time I just spent in prayer have any effect on my actual life?”
Then you leave and return to real life, where you spend time shopping, cooking, and caring for the people you love. The disconnect is real! The answer is not to stop praying, but to learn how to connect prayer with life in all its normality!
Here are a few ways to make sure that you’re not wasting your time or your life, and can keep your spiritual sanity as well.
1. Get To Know Yourself
Spend quality time digging deeper into yourself. This is a valuable prayerful practice. Self-knowledge is the foundation for any possibility of change or growth. I mean things like remembering what your personality was like as a child, listing out all your current worries, identifying your strengths and weaknesses, or even paying more attention to the things that distract you during your “time of prayer.”
Connect Prayer with Life
This is perhaps the easiest way to connect prayer with life, especially if you’re doing it in God’s presence and under the guidance of his love for you. You can carry on the simplest conversation with God about how he created you, why he made you as he did, and what his plans for your future might be.
2. Use Your Own Words
Be yourself! God can see right through you anyway. Don’t try to appear better than you are, God knows everything. Instead, just talk to him as his child.
The temptation might be to use beautiful prayers, novenas, or favorites written by the famous saints. Remember, in God’s eyes, no one is famous. The purpose of prayer is not what comes out of your mouth, but what’s going on inside your heart. No one has a better connection to your own heart than you do, when you speak freely.
Prayer that is real and raw can be so simple. There are many ways to do this, however, a very easy way to start is by saying Please & Thank You. Here are some examples on different levels:
PLEASE: Ask for what you need
- On a material level
- For your own success
- Growing in your ability to help others
- In your relationship with God
THANK YOU: Gratitude for what you have
- Things that you enjoy
- Your accomplishments
- The ways you’re able to give back
- The gift of faith
3. Start Writing Things Down
Building up spiritual memory is best done in writing. Don’t be afraid to try journaling in a way that is unique to your needs! There’s no right way to do this. Just start saving things that matter to you so that you can come back to pray about them again and again.
If you are curious about starting a prayer journal, we offer an online course that provides structures for you to get started.
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing down your own prayers, or making lists about what you believe or the worries that you want to speak to God about, these will very naturally help you to begin connecting faith with your real life. Once you learn to connect prayer with life, you’ll find that your time of prayer is more personal and fulfilling, and you’ll discover a renewed sense of purpose and peace.
4. Pray About Your Heart
As we mentioned above, those who know themselves well, are more capable of becoming better … at anything. And I don’t just mean know your flaws. I mean, know yourself deeply as God knows you. This includes your talents, inspirations, dreams, weaknesses, and desires.
Isn’t it fascinating to think that every finger God ever created has a different fingerprint? Humans are unique in a billion ways. No two of us are alike. Experts can look at a single signature and conclude a myriad of character traits about the individual. If you want to connect prayer with life, then use prayer to get to know yourself deeply in a myriad of traits and tendencies: ask the Lord softly and humbly: “Why do I say that all the time?” “How come these emotions hurt so much?” “Why is this person in my life?” “What am I supposed to learn from this?”
Essentially, talk to God about yourself and all the unique things that deeply matter to you, and prayer will never seem boring again.
When you pray with your own words you can’t help but mean what you say.
5. Lower Your Expectations
God doesn’t care about your niceties.
Embrace yourself – then let God embrace you as you are!
Prayer is about learning to live in a close relationship with your creator.
So CHILL OUT! Let him love you, and spend time in his presence. – THIS is how you connect prayer with your everyday life.
6. Pray With Your Life
We have to admit that it is very possible to waste time in prayer if you’re stuck in ritual devotionals, externals, formulas, or tradition for its own sake. The best cure is being real, raw, and intentional, and allowing God to touch your desires, thoughts, decisions, and eventually your actions.
But on the flip side, one of the best ways to make sure your prayer connects with your life is by transforming your life into an ongoing prayer. This can be easily done in several ways.
Making your life a prayer
- Offering your everyday actions as a gift of your love to God
- Finding things that you enjoy and thanking God for them spontaneously
- When you recognize a need, raising a plea to God to assist you
- Offering things that are difficult in union with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross
- Resisting temptation out of love
Conclusion
Prayer doesn’t have to be stiff, useless, or boring. While sometimes prayer can be a battle, when we’re praying in a way that links to our needs and desires, then we will find much more purpose and peace.
Embrace the invitation to learn how to pray in a way that connects directly to your ongoing endeavor to become a better person in every aspect of your complicated and often difficult Christian life.
I hope you will feel comfortable and motivated to settle down peacefully and confidently and to relate with God in a way that enables you to freely be yourself in his presence with a handful of ways to pray that are personal, spontaneous, tangible, effective, and flow from the heart.
A few questions to take to prayer
- Am I committed to becoming a saint?
- What do I need to tweak in my prayer life to be more attentive to the Holy Spirit?
