A Time to Pray

In my last blogpost, I started a series on prayer. I opened up a survey in which you could anonymously tell me why you pray and how often you pray. In this post, I am just going to discuss the second question. Here are the results for that question:

In my post last week, I talked about 1 Thessalonians 5:17, which tells us to “pray without ceasing,” and I said that our lives are prayers. But this does not mean that we don’t have to deliberately pray. One question concerning prayer I wanted to find an answer to was “how often should I pray?” Muslims pray five times a day, which is probably a lot more than most of us do. They may have bad motives, but the amount they pray is admirable.

I also heard a story recently about a man who wanted to learn what it meant to pray without ceasing. After receiving spiritual counsel, he took the words of the tax collector in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:13, saying “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” and he prayed that 3,000 times a day. After doing that for a few days, he felt that it wasn’t enough and started praying it 6,000 times a day. He still felt that there was room for improvement so he increased in to 12,000 times a day. I’m not quite sure if that’s possible but, according to the story, he pulled it off. The man began to realize that he was constantly praying subconsciously. He couldn’t breathe, speak or sleep without that prayer being present in his heart.

I love the point that this story makes, but because it seems a little excessive, I kept looking for a more reasonable answer. So…how often should you pray? I will answer that with a question. How often are you afraid, stressed, anxious, depressed, alone, angry, happy, thankful, looking for guidance or needing help? We should pray in all of those circumstances and in many, many more.

“Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.” James 5:13-15