Praying is common…
This is 3rd of 3 from my Praying: More is Better message. The first two were Praying Is Right and Praying is Creative!
If your objective, like mine, is to make praying a common, every day, very (very!) frequent action you take, then you want to recognize that
- praying is common,
- praying can be common,
- praying can become a common action you take without much effort.
I’m not looking to make praying “lazy-person easy” (my Papaw’s phrase). I’m looking to help find ways to make praying better for me and better for you. And better means whatever we want it to mean. Besides, who’s to say easier praying isn’t better, anyway!?
Let’s start here: praying can become a more common and frequent behavior if you give yourself a tool that can automatically remind you that you want to pray. So, are you
- A tactile person? If so, carry a touchstone in your pocket, let your favorite pen remind you, wear a significant piece of jewelry (I wear a small silver cross marked “PAZ”, found when I was clearing out my mother’s jewelry collection).
- A visual person? Select a sight you see often that has the right imagery to make you want to pray. How about water running or the wind blowing or birds flying? Remember to select something that is common throughout the day/night.
- An auditory person? Perhaps you prefer to be prompted by sounds. I love to hear children laughing and bells ringing and trains whistling. Pay attention to sounds–common sounds– where you live and/or work.
Our goal, remember, is to make praying easy so that we’ll do it more often, so that we will know and feel better about praying. So simplify praying to make it easy. If praying to you means a long, drawn out, and with lots of fanfare process, it may not attract you that often. Consider that anything you say/feel/think/imagine/guess/dream/do with the idea that “this is going to God” is a prayer!
- Thank you, God. (Meister Eckhart said if that’s all we ever pray, it’s enough!)
- We do love each other.
- It is a beautiful day.
- I enjoy all the prosperity around me.
Sound a lot like affirmations, don’t they? Hey, prayer can be totally affirmative!
Finally, use your rational left brain to motivate your creative right brain. Set simple goals, objectives, targets that will stimulate you to pray. These may serve as the nudges you need to say a few more prayers…and feel a little bit better about praying.
- Plan to say 25 prayers tomorrow. Doesn’t matter if you only get to 10, if the goal of 25 helps you pray those 10.
- Plan to say 5 prayer before noon, 5 more before dinner, 5 more before bed. The number 5 is just an example. Pick a number that will make you want to pray, make it easy to pray, make it fun to pray.
- Plan to say more prayers today than you said yesterday. Again, your goal is not to keep accurate count of how many times you pray. The real goal is just to make praying a more common part of your day. Every day.
I was born into the Episcopal Church. I became very familiar with the Book of Common Prayer. Pretty obvious that I’m using “common” with a broader meaning.
Love,
In: Affirmation, Happiness, Peacefulness, Prayer, Spirituality, Time · Tagged with: Affirmations, God, Prayer, spiritual simplicity
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