Effective prayer can be powerful. Whether you believe in Christian prayer, Catholic prayer, Muslim prayer, or any type of religious prayer I think most people would agree with this statement. Even folks who are not necessarily religious, but consider themselves “spiritual” profess to the power of quite meditation or prayer.
Now, I personally believe that the only effective prayer is one that is made earnestly to God through Jesus Christ. James 5:16 says that “…the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (NIV). Another way of saying it is “…the earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available…(Amplified Bible).
So we know prayer can be powerful when used effectively and applied the right way, but what if there is no prayer at all? It’s kind of hard to benefit from the power of prayer when we don’t pray at all or very little, isn’t it? Well, I believe there is a little solution that can go a LONG way in helping us with our prayer life (or lack of it).
The power of 10. 10 minutes a day multiplied by 365 days is 3,650 minutes a year. That equates to roughly 60 hours a year. Now what is 60 hours a year? Suppose your boss told you that you were being sent to a conference to learn about a new piece of software…and that you were going to sit for 1 1/2 weeks 8-hour, 5-day weeks to learn and practice this new software.
Don’t you think when you came back home 1 1/2 weeks later that you would know a lot more about it than when you left? Depending on the material to learn, there is a decent chance that you would be a bonafide expert on the subject if you applied 60 hours to it.
Well, that’s what can happen when you learn to harness the power of 10 in your prayer life. 10 minutes a day. Just 10 minutes equates to 60 hours a year. The fact is that most of us don’t pray 60 hours total a year.
Oh, we pray in little spurts. 5 minutes one day, two minutes a couple of days later. We may even pray for a solid hour on occasion…or perhaps pray really hard for something when we need it…but if God was to do a spiritual audit of most of us Christians, He would more thank likely find a lot less than 60 hours of prayer during the course of a year.
But now we can change all that in just 10 minutes. 10 minutes of prayer a day. Now let’s suppose that we don’t think we have 10 minutes. I, personally, believe we do, but just for the sake of argument let’s say that you work 90 hours a week and sleep or drive back and forth to work for the other 78 hours and don’t ever mindlessly surf the internet, make casual cell phone calls, play with Twitter or Facebook, watch your favorite television show or movie. I would still bet that you DO somehow make it to the bathroom a few times a week…and I certainly hope you take a shower once in a while. What about fixing your hair of brushing your teeth?
I found that when I did my own “personal” audit, that many of these times I was either daydreaming, worrying, or simply not using my mind consciously at all. I also found that when I was able to consciously say little focused prayers during these necessary activities that the time added up. In fact, it added up to a LOT more than 10 minutes a day – more like 30-60.
If we would look hard, we would find even more opportunities for prayer. What about the drive time to and from school or work? What about exercise time? What about the first few minutes after we close our eyes at night or the first few minutes during the morning as we get out of bed? As Ecclesiastes 8:5 says “…Those who are wise will find a time and a way to do what is right.” (NLT)
And for those religious people who believe prayer should only be done on one’s knees over long periods of time, I would ask: Could it be that the reason people don’t pray as much as they should is because of people like you who make them feel guilty when they don’t do it your way?
