Practicing Presence: Prayer

Six tips to help you fully engage during personal and corporate prayer

Ever paused to pray and found your mind wandering a few minutes later? Struggle to stay focused and feel connected during corporate or even personal prayer times? If we’re being honest, we’ve all struggled with staying fully present and engaged during prayer. Our minds wander; we lose focus; random thoughts pop into our heads. So what can we do to re-engage our minds and hearts and remain fully present when we’re praying?

We’ve got a few ideas that have helped us.

1. Journal or write your prayers. In addition to providing a record of how God has answered specific prayers (helpful in times when you feel alone or abandoned or can’t see how he’s working), journaling your prayers helps you to focus on what you’re doing. Simply write out your prayer and pour out your heart to God. You don’t even have to keep the written copy if you don’t want to (even though, as we mentioned earlier, it can be encouraging to look back at how God has been working in your life).
   

2. Speak your prayers. Sometimes, the best way to force your brain and your heart to focus and engage with prayer is to pray out loud. Maybe you’re driving alone in the car and a friend or situation comes to mind. Turn off the music or podcast and simply pray aloud. If you’re worried other drivers might think you’re weird, today’s hands-free driving technology means that talking aloud when you’re alone in your car isn’t that weird anymore! Plus, prayer is simply a conversation with God, so why not talk it out?
   

3. Set aside a specific time to pray. Habits take time to build in your life, and creating a specific, scheduled time of day that you pray, even if it’s only for five minutes, can be a vital way of building this discipline in your life. But it’s also a valuable tool to help you focus. If you know that you’ve devoted 10 minutes specifically to prayer in your daily schedule and already have a plan for how you’re going to accomplish everything else you need to do that day, your mind is free to stop worrying about all the other distractions and focus on God. So, schedule a specific time to pray and guard that time, treating it like a meeting or an appointment with a friend, which, as it turns out, it is.
   

4. Open your eyes. As believers, we often pray in church services or small group settings. If you’ve grown up around the church, it’s likely that somewhere along the way, someone taught you to close your eyes when you pray as a way to focus and avoid distractions. But as an adult, sometimes closing our eyes can create more opportunities for distraction. So, rather than screwing your eyes shut and hoping for the best, look down at the floor or a specific place in the room. As you focus your eyes on these locations, focus your attention on the fact that you are joining with other believers in prayer, actively calling out to God and believing he is capable and willing to act.
   

5. Actively listen. When you chat with a friend, you probably don’t always sit there passively as they talk. If you’re actively engaged in the conversation, you nod in agreement, quietly voice your assent and may even sometimes join them in tears or joy. When you’re engaged in corporate prayer with other believers, one way to fully engage is to allow yourself to express the emotions you’re feeling as you listen and pray with whomever is leading, sometimes vocally and sometimes physically.
   

6. Prepare your heart and mind. Sometimes it’s hard to stay engaged in corporate prayer because we haven’t spent much time talking to God individually since the last church service. Sunday mornings can be stressful and trying, especially if you’re trying to get kids ready and make sure the dog doesn’t run out the door or the curling iron gets turned off before you leave. Create a ritual on the way to church that allows you (and those with you) to take a deep breath, let go of the frustrations and stresses of the morning, and ask God to focus your mind and heart on him and what he wants to teach you.

At The Bookery, we believe in the power of prayer, but know that sometimes it can be difficult to “show up” during prayer times. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you to be fully present when you pray.