5 Practical Ways to Prioritize Prayer

This post contains some affiliate links. If you make a purchase using my link, I may receive a small commission. I only recommend companies and products that I love and trust. This keeps the coffee brewing and the words flowing, so thank you for supporting Faithfully Planted!

Many of us want to prioritize prayer; we desire a vibrant prayer life but we don’t know how to create one. Often, we are overwhelmed due to the sheer amount of things and people and situations that need to be covered in prayer. This can mean our families, our friends, requests from church groups, our church itself, the leadership, our communities, our marriages, friendships and family relationships, natural disasters, poverty, and the list just goes on.

It is easy to become paralyzed and give up trying to cultivate a fruitful prayer life because you just don’t know where to start.

This is the strategy of the enemy. He uses lies and guilt to shame us into believing prayer isn’t a priority and that we don’t have enough time. But the truth is that prayer is vital to our faith; it is our lifeline.

Prayer is where we find our intimacy with Christ and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Prayer is how spiritual battles are fought and hearts are healed and changed. We must prioritize prayer.

While it may seem like a daunting task, taking the time and effort to create an active prayer life will pay dividends throughout all areas of your life. It is too important not to prioritize prayer. Your relationships will improve, your mood and emotions will stabilize and you will find strength and peace in ways your human mind can’t comprehend.

There are so many ways to easily make your prayer life more vibrant and effective without being overwhelming. Here are 5 of my favorites!

Write It Down

Writing down my areas of focus for prayer has been the most helpful change I have made in my prayer life. This helps alleviate the burden of remembering all of the needs of family and friends. Instead, I can bring them before the Lord right away because they are already written down.

I make lists as requests come my way and pray through that list until the prayer is answered or provision is made. This also allows me to go back and see answered prayers.

I also like to journal my prayers when I can. I pray out loud during times when I can’t write, such as in the car or in the shower. When I do get time to write my prayers out, it helps me to keep my heart and mind focused.

I’ve found that using a dedicated prayer journal is a great visual reminder as well. When I see it somewhere in my apartment or in my purse, it helps me to remember to take a moment to pray.

I use the Yearly Prayer Journal from ValMarie Paper that helps me organize my prayer life all year long. In her journals, there is space for writing down requests and focus areas for each month as well as lined pages to journal in. She also offers a smaller, cheaper 6-month prayer journal option that doesn’t break the bank (only $15!) with just the categories.

Categorize It

You don’t have to pray over everything and everyone each day. This was the most freeing lesson I have learned when it comes to prayer. All the events, people and communities I needed to be praying for overwhelmed me so much that I would just not pray at all. And then guilt would set in from not praying.

This is not what God wants from us when it comes to prayer. The purpose of prayer is communion and a conversation between us and God. It is supposed to bring peace and freedom, not guilt, shame and bondage.

This is another reason I love my prayer journal from ValMarie Paper. Each month has categories to make it even easier to chunk up my areas of prayer to focus on. There is a section for world issues, your community, your family/marriage, your friends, salvation and blank sections you can customize for your life. At the end of each month, I fill out the sections for the following month and assign a category or two to each day of the week.

Having a different prayer focus for each day dramatically increases my likelihood of actually engaging in deep, meaningful prayer time. If you can’t purchase a yearly or 6-month journal like mine, you can chunk up categories on your own. Use a blank journal, a planner or set calendar reminders on your phone.

Simplify It

I recently had someone ask me how I pray out loud so well. This caught me off guard because I don’t think I do. But as I thought about my answer to her question, I realized she thought that because my prayers sound like a conversation. When I pray, I am talking to a friend. I am speaking to my loving father who cares for me and hears my every word.

It took a lot of practice and learning to let go of my fear of others hearing me pray to simplify my own prayers. Powerful and effective prayers do not have to be eloquent and complex. What matters most with prayer is that you do it. They can be as quick and simple as you want them to be.

As long as they are genuine and authentic, that is all that matters. Prayer is not powerful because of what we say or the words we use. Prayer is powerful because of who we serve. You do not need to persuade God, you simply need to pursue Him. Philippians 4:6 tell us,

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Go back to the basics and know that God hears you and knows your heart. All your prayers need is thankfulness, praise and then whatever need you are lifting to the Lord.

Outsource It

This doesn’t mean have someone else pray your prayers for you. What I mean by this is, others have already done the work for you, so use it! Take advantage of the resources available to you if you are overwhelmed or feel like you don’t know how to pray. Decide on a topic you want to pray about and find a Pinterest board, a blog post, a book or a free printable prayer over that topic.

You don’t have to come up with the words all on your own. This frees up your time and energy to be able to engage in prayer itself, rather than dealing with the anxiety of coming up with words or topics to pray about.

For example, when I committed to regularly praying for my husband, I purchased 31 Prayers for My Husband by Jennifer Smith and The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian. Going through each of these books was like learning to ride a bike with training wheels. They gave me something solid to lean on while I was learning and helped me hone my skills and vocabulary to take the training wheels off after I finished them.

One of the best books out there for creating a vibrant personal prayer life is Fervent by Priscilla Schrier. If you want to armor up to fight your own spiritual battle through prayer, this book is a must-read.

Automate It

Have you ever met a truly Godly woman? A woman who can speak so much encouragement and truth into your life? A woman who is overflowing with peace, joy, love, patience, and hope? I guarantee that woman prays. Not only does she pray, but she also prays first. Going to the Lord in prayer is an automatic response.

This is what I mean by ‘automate it.’ Train yourself to automatically pray as your first response. When you see something on the news, say a prayer. If you see an accident on the side of the road, say a prayer. When a friend opens up to you, say a silent prayer or offer to pray with them right then. If you see something on social media, pray about it at that moment.

As you do this more and more, you are training your brain to respond to news and events with prayer. Creating any new habit takes some time, so be patient and give yourself a lot of grace.