Prayer(ority)

As a college student I’ve been told many times about the importance of prioritizing things in my life by my parents, professors and dare I say it self-help books.

If I were to go around my campus and ask people what the top priority in their lives were I would most likely hear these words tossed around

Career

            Family

Happiness

            Schoolwork

Friends

 But how does prayer fit into this list? If we were to sit and analyze our lives based on our words, actions and beliefs would we see that prayer was a top priority in our lives?

There are huge parts of my life where the answer is no. Sometimes prayer seems like an after thought to me or a waste of time. It was not until college where I saw the importance of prayer in my life as a daughter of Christ.

So what is prayer(ority)?

I have no idea! The word didn’t come from a famous scholar or a Wikipedia page, no the concept just came to me when I was selling popsicles at work.

Prayer(ority) 

 /prayer-ority/

       1. accepting prayer as an important part of ones life that blends into all aspects of a                        person’s priorities.

In the past four years I can look back on specific prayers that God answered where I immediately gave him praise for His answer whether it was in my favor or not. However, I did not find this kind of freedom and refuge in my prayers until I looked at them differently.

There are three main points that I deem important when it comes to prayer(ority) in our daily lives.

1. We must believe and have faith that the Lord will answer our prayers. Even though we don’t see tangible evidence all the time in regard to our prayers… He does hear us.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. –Mark 11:24

Prayer is active, it’s continuing, it’s an unending conversation between us and God, but sometimes our prayers are empty due to our unbelief or doubt that God won’t answer.

 And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. -1 John 5:14 NLT

2. We must continue to pray if we want to continue a relationship with the Lord.

A lot of people (me included) have lost hope in prayer at times. So little by little we stop praying altogether. We might think that our prayers have no meaning and hold no power (James 5:16) when in fact our prayers have a high importance to our Father.

I mean if He is really our source of life like we proclaim we must pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) to continue that relationship. Realistically this means praying on a daily basis. But please don’t see praying as a chore, the Lord doesn’t require elaborate prayers from us, he just wants us to simply talk to Him.

So if we stop praying, than we are disconnecting ourselves from the vine (John 15).

3. The Lord knows if our heart is sincere in prayer.

But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.  –Matthew 6:6 NLT

This verse doesn’t mean that God does not want His children to pray together. Indeed our Father encourages us to pray with fellow believers (Matthew 18:20) for in these moments He is with us. God just doesn’t want us to forget that prayer is an intimate and private time between Father and child.

When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. –Matthew 6:7 NLT

I personally know what it’s like to ramble on in prayer. I’ve done it while praying with other believers many times. It’s like I’m trying to make my prayer more beautiful by showing off my vast vocabulary, when really prayer is beautiful just the way it is. God answers the simplest prayers and He doesn’t need us to add extra fluff to it. I mean sure all the extra fluff sounds good to our human ears, but God doesn't require us to list every synonym and adjective to every word that comes out of our mouths. 

Instead we should pray wholeheartedly leaning in on the Holy Spirit to lead us with our words. So there is no need to pressure ourselves into speaking many eloquently long and drawn out prayers when we're in public—because that my friends is not prayer, but a performance.

So I leave you with this last question: 

Is prayer a priority in your life and do you pray for and through 

the other priorities in your life?