Number One Way to Stay Focused in Prayer

If this is your view while driving, you lost your focus somewhere. Now when we talk about losing our focus in prayer the consequences maybe are not as deadly, but it can cause a great deal of discouragement.

How many of us have sat down to spend time with God only to find ourselves only minutes later thinking about a deadline we have to meet later that day. Our mind can be very hard to corral. It often wanders quickly from one thing to another. You sit down to pray while at work, and then you hear your email beep. Without thinking you check it and forget about praying. Staying focused is difficult.

How can you keep your mind from wandering? Pray out loud. Verbalizing your prayers is the most effective way I have found to keeping my mind from drifting off to other things. And, when I find that I have been quiet and my mind has started thinking about what I have to do that day, I just start again speaking my prayers. Also, when I vocalizing my prayers, other distractions are less likely to get me off task.

Additionally, speaking out loud forces you to think more on what you are saying instead of just thinking general ideas. To verbalize these thoughts, we allow ourselves to concentrate on what we are actually praying. We draw out those ideas further by speaking them and thus engage more with God.  It also draws them out of our desires and wants and into the level of our heart.

This post is not to negate the power of thinking through your prayers. God is not limited by only answering those requests that come out of our lips. This post is about the issue of when our minds wander. There are ways to make prayer more engaging and exciting for you. Keep pressing on. God sees your desires and has an even greater desire to meet with you.