Breathing Prayers

Prayer has never been easy for me. It’s not that I don’t know how to pray, but it takes a lot of discipline for me to stick to praying even when I don’t feel like it. I’ve heard stories of people in the Bible and missionaries who had ground-shaking prayer lives but that’s never happened for me. However, as I pushed through my insecurity about prayer and just started doing it, I found out that I don’t need to have all the answers. My life became so much more peace-filled when I interacted with God regularly in prayer.

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For me, one of the best things about praying is that I can do it anytime, anywhere. More than that, I can choose to have a constant conversation with God. This has been such a beautiful part of my walk with Him. When I’d have to make a split-second decision, I’d whisper God, help me, and then, often, I would have clarity. When I saw something beautiful, like a waving flower or a singing bird, I’d smile and pray, Thank You, God. These simple prayers became more and more natural. I wondered if this was what Paul meant when he said to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17). I started calling these short, one-sentence prayers breathing prayers because I started doing them without thinking, kind of like breathing.

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As I interacted with God more and more through these simple, child-like prayers, my relationship with Him deepened. He opened my eyes to things I hadn’t seen. It was like I was holding His hand throughout the day. The truth is, you don’t have to be a missionary to have a rich prayer life. Every child of Godevery person who has put their trust in Jesuscan enjoy constant communication with Him. God is listening, He loves you, and He loves hearing from you! Through prayer, He invites us to lean into His strength as He equips us for everything we face. As we communicate with God, we get to experience the closeness we have with the One who loves us so dearly. Lily Walsh

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God invites us to be in relationship with Him. Even though our sin separated us from God, He made the way for us to be close to Him through Jesus’s death and resurrection. Now, everyone who has put their trust in Jesus is brought near to God! Yet, we can still choose how much we interact with Him. Why do you think God calls us to communicate with Him continually?

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We all feel hesitant to pray sometimes. How could this author’s personal experience with prayer give us hope to reach out to God even when we feel resistance?

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Pray continually. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NIV)

Read Verses:

Jeremiah33:3; Luke 18:1; 1Thess:5:16-1Thess:5:18; James 5:13-James 5:18