Let 2025 Be Known As The Year Of Prayer!

Many of us pray, but we need to pray more, and with more focus. Jesus is our Savior, but He is also our best friend! He cares about everything in our lives, big and small! He cares about those we love and He Loves Us 🙂

So often, we are so busy, that we don’t really devote enough time or focus to building our prayer life. And when we fail to do so, we let fears and emotions like anger creep into our lives. God can’t work through anger.

Sadly, our churches do not teach “How to Pray” too often. And yet, prayer may be one of the most important teachings we could share. How do we pray?

I heard someone say recently, “We don’t have to be certain, we just have to begin a conversation with God”. And perhaps that is the best way.

More experienced prayors will be able to have a very long conversation with God. They will tell God about their entire day. The things that made them happy and the things that made them sad. Their hopes and dreams, both for themselves and those they love. They will ask God to help both them and those they love.

Listening. Then there is listening to God. Something very, very important, but often forgotten. Prayer is a conversation between God and us. It helps us to build our relationship with God. But part of that conversation is listening to God.

Obedience. If God tells us to do something, we need to do it. ASAP. Joseph and Mary were so good at trusting God and obeying Him-immediately. We need to do the same!

There are many who are newer to praying. Their conversation may be shorter and that is absolutely okay. But that is when set prayers are so helpful. And a great way to pray is to read the Bible. Everytime we do, we say a prayer and God smiles. We can also pray “set prayers”. A “set” prayer is a prayer such as the Our Father that Jesus taught us. Set prayers tell God that although we have run out of words and we have listened as well as we can, we would still like to keep praying! They tell God how much we love Him and that we want to be closer to Him.

Short Prayers: Often, especially as our work day progresses, we do not have time for a long conversation or set prayers. This is when short prayers are so helpful. Maybe our prayer will be a simple Thank You. Or maybe our day is going badly, so our prayer will simply be a cry for help. Perhaps we were hit with doubts, and our prayer will simply be “Please grant me faith, thank you.”. Whatever our short prayers are thoughout the day, they are really important. Because they help us to maintain our relationship with God throughout the day. They will strengthen us and steady us. And they will help our faith grow.

Follow Jesus & Keep Praying; Prayer Changes Things!