Does Prayer Really Help?
Improved Physical Health
Reduced Stress
Prayer can help you get your stress under control. Today, it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in stress – many people live such fast-paced lifestyles that it’s hard to find a moment to relax and unwind. When you pray, you come to recognize that you’re part of something bigger, and your own problems feel smaller and solvable in comparison. Medi-Share states that in some cases, praying can even help you alleviate the symptoms of mild physical ailments that are often exacerbated by stress and anxiety, such as headaches, stomach pains, and fatigue.
Coping With Tough Events
Everyone faces challenges in life. No matter who you are, you’ve probably dealt with obstacles that you weren’t sure you could ever overcome. Prayer in combination with reading God’s Word is two-way communication–it may help you avoid challenges, but when you find yourself in the midst of them, it can also empower you to better cope with tough events. There may be times when you’re wondering whether you can truly move on from a difficult event or if you’re capable of overcoming a major setback. When you pray, you find yourself tapping into a new source of strength, realizing you are never truly on your own. You have an ever-present companion, counselor and comforter in the Holy Spirit. Even when things feel difficult, you can find courage and conviction through prayer.
Positive Outlook
Do you ever struggle with a negative mindset? Maybe you have a tendency to assume that when you’re facing an uncertain situation, the outcome will not be in your favor. Personally? Been there. Many times. If you tend to have a pessimistic outlook, prayer can change that. As you pray, you might notice your perspective shifting – perhaps you realize that a situation that seemed negative actually has an upside, or you recognize that you have strengths beyond what you thought you were capable of.
Related Health and Wellness Strategies
While praying regularly can help you improve your physical health, it’s also important to incorporate other beneficial habits into your usual routines. For example, you could commit to cooking nutritious meals at home, going to bed earlier, or exercising several times per week. If you have a busy work schedule, you might assume that you don’t have enough time to exercise, but you can always incorporate more physical activity into your existing routine. You might choose to go for walks on your lunch break or park further away from destinations. Any moment outside in nature brings blessings and beauty from God’s creation your way, and in that, reason to pray and thank Him.
Getting Started
The Bible offers helpful instruction in praying which exhorts us to reflect on five aspects our relationship with God in our prayers:
Adoration and blessing – because we recognize God is worthy; we are dependent on Him for our very breath and life. He is truly marvelous and amazing.
Thanksgiving to Him – for His grace, His provision for Salvation through Jesus, and all our many blessings.
Petitions or supplications – those burdens we bring to the Lord for ourselves. He is Jehovah Jireh, our Provider. He is our Healer. He is our Sustainer and Protector and our everlasating Prince of Peace.
Intercessions – prayers for the needs of others.
Praises – we express love for Him (because He first loved us).
He promises when we pray this way, that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:6-7, ESV Bible) That is a powerful promise for our health and well-being. And He is faithful to keep His Word.
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Come to the Well…
The greatest need that the world has is Jesus. But I think we often forget in the church that our greatest need is the same. Sometimes I wonder that we assume, “Well, I’m saved, I got baptized; now I just need to make it through until I go to heaven,” when, in reality, we need Jesus now, right now, in this moment.
And we don’t need Him to fix our country, or fix our finances, or fix our marriage. We need Him. That’s it. Our souls crave and long for Jesus; not what He does, or even what He has done, but just Him, in His person.
At the risk of waxing boring, I’m going to reiterate the point. What the Christian needs, more than anything else, is Jesus. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” “Draw near to Him, and He will draw near to you.” “Abide in me, and I will abide in you,” Jesus says. And you know what’s great about that last promise? Jesus tells us to abide, “so that our joy may be full.”
Jesus brings joy, and isn’t that we long for, joy? Jesus said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing,” and nobody wants to do nothing. We want to be useful, and purposeful. Call it legacy if you like, but we want to know that we’ve contributed to the whole, that our lives have mattered, and that we left things better than when we found them. That brings us joy. So if having joy is contingent on abiding in Christ, the Christian had better find a way to linger in the presence of Jesus, and bask in the glory of who He is.
Your greatest need today is not healing. It’s not peace, or lack of stress. It’s not even the basics, like food and water. Your need is Jesus, and that is true regardless of where you find yourself on the spectrum of faith.
The unbeliever may not know they need Jesus. The new believer may know all too well that they need Jesus. But my fear is the greatest for the believer who has walked with Jesus for some time. We are so quick to forget that we can’t simply cruise on autopilot. All that requires is our own strength, and that will amount to nothing. Instead, tap into the presence and power of Jesus by sitting at His feet as Mary, tying your life to Him as the disciples did, counting all things as loss for the sake of gaining Christ as Paul did.
But, whatever you do, don’t persist in your neediness. You’re dry and famished, and are drinking at cisterns that are not of His making. Come rather to the well that never runs dry, to the streams of living water that refresh the soul, the mind, and the body.
Have your needs met in Him. “And all these things will be added unto you.”
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3 Areas All of Us Struggle to Trust God With
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