Prayer. It is at the core of our spirituality. It is a vital part of so many religious experiences among many different faiths. We use it in our every day conversations with others. It is integral to our journey’s toward God.
But in today’s world, prayer is not easy. As lives get busier and distractions increase, when can we find the time to pray? Once we do find the time, what do we do? How do we stay focused? How long should we pray? Who should we pray with? What prayers should we say?
I have to admit that I struggle with these things daily. I’m guessing that I’m not alone.
What are Prayer Habits?
Prayer habits are various actions that have become a part of our lifestyle that lead us closer to God.
This website is about practicing small habits to become better at prayer. All too often prayer and spirituality are placed so far up on a pedestal that we feel unworthy or unqualified to pray. We think our prayers aren’t good enough or that we’re not praying right. This is why it is so important to start with small changes to our daily lives to become men and women of prayer.
In order to avoid criticism from the start, I don’t propose to present prayer itself as a skill we can master. We never master prayer. Prayer is by its very nature unproductive from the perspective of most people today. Most of all, prayer is not dependent upon us at all. Prayer is the emptying of oneself. There is no amount of hard work that will make us better at prayer.
However, we all know what it is like to have a bad prayer experience. We have busy schedules that lead us away from prayer. We forget to pray. We pray, but we’re distracted. Or maybe we avoid praying all together.
This is where habits come in. Habits are things we do without thought. They are a part of us. They are intentional at first but become a part of our nature over time.
What I Intend to Write About at Prayer Habits
So often these types of posts can set a course towards some goal that completely changes over time. Regardless, I intend to use this website as a platform for exploring the following:
- Improvements in my own prayer life by developing good prayer habits
- Improvements in the way I pray with my family
- Good prayer habits
- Bad prayer habits
- Using popular devotions, novenas, and daily prayers
- Sharing popular prayers
- Prayer books and resources
- Prayer among various religious traditions
Or, to put it simply:
- When (Time to Pray)
- Where (Places to Pray)
- How (How to Pray)
- Why (Why we Pray)
- What (What to pray, What to pray with)
I look forward to building a community around the idea of prayer both for my own selfish need for support and also to help others get in touch with or rekindle their life of prayer.
With that, let’s get started.
