How much should I pray?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. This last week we began a series in the Psalms, looking at when and how to pray. So the question comes in this week, um, a general question about prayer is how much should I pray? How long should I pray? Should it be every day?

And if it is every day, how much time do I need to spend doing it on an every day basis? Um, and I would say one answer to that is like Paul says, pray continually. Um, and I think what he means about that is uh we’re constantly checking in with God throughout the day. It’s not literally every moment, um, every instant, every second that we’re offering up prayers. But as we go through our day, talk to God about whatever’s happening.

You might offer him thank you for whatever’s happening. As you see something beautiful, the sky looks awesome, just say, thank you. You taste something delicious, say, thank you. The chair is comfortable, say, thank you as you’re sitting in it. It doesn’t need to be long, just a real quick prayer. At the same time, um, we could be asking for his help every moment of the day or as we go through our day. You’re about to go into a meeting, say, please help.

Help me do well, help me perform well, uh help me represent you well. Um, whatever’s happening throughout our day, just offering up little constant prayers. Jesus did this kind of thing. John 11, um, as before he raises Lazarus from the dead, Jesus offers up this little prayer. It’s not long, he’s just checking in with God, uh, right before he raises Lazarus from the dead.

But Jesus didn’t only offer little prayers throughout the day, he also had alone time, uh, just him and God. Luke 5:16 for instance says, in the NIV it says Jesus often withdrew to lonely places to pray. Um, not every version includes the word often in that sentence, but whether it’s there or not, we know that’s the author’s intent because or Luke’s intent because he said Jesus, uh, would go to lonely places and pray.

Seems to be his common practice. It’s not just one place that happened one time, he would, he went to these multiple places. It happened on an ongoing basis. He regularly got by himself just with God alone to pray for an extended period of time. And we would assume that both of these kind of practices, the ongoing throughout the day conversation and the alone time conversation, that both of those need to happen for a relationship to feel full and to thrive. Um, you know, you can think about any

significant relationships that you have. If if the only thing you’re doing is these kind of quick check-ins throughout the day, yes, those are important. Um, you know, what time do you need me home? Okay? Important. Uh, but if that’s the only conversation that you have with somebody that you’re in a significant relationship with, that’s not going to be a very full, vibrant uh relationship.

You need to have time just the two of you. You need to go out to dinner, you need to have some activity where you two get alone and just are able to be together. Every relationship needs both of those kind of times together. And so our time with God, uh, or our relationship with God needs to have both of those types of times. Um, now you may ask, well how long do I need to have the alone time with God every day?

We don’t know how long Jesus spent. So, I think when the Bible doesn’t specify something, that means that we have freedom uh in how we apply the principle. Um, but I would encourage us to continue to increase whatever that amount of time is, if it’s five minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, three hours, just increase it.

Take intentional steps to um get more of that kind of alone time with God. Um, you know, another minute a week, another 10 minutes a week, another 10 minutes a month. Just add it in as you go forward. I think what you’ll find is the more time that you spend with God alone, the more, paradoxically, the more time it will feel like you have for everything else. Um, and the shorter that you cut your time with God, I bet the more stressed you’re going to be trying to get everything else done. Um, Martin

Luther, whether he said it or not, it is attributed to him, um, he said, maybe, that he had so much to do today that he must spend the first three hours of his day in prayer. I have so much to do, how am I going to handle that? I’m going to spend the first three hours in prayer. Um, and we all know that he accomplished quite a bit. Uh, so I don’t know if we’ll ever all get to three hours a day, but I believe we will find the same principle at work.

The more time we spend with God alone, the better we will be able to handle whatever it is that happens uh in our day. So thanks for the question. We’ll see you next time.