Connecting with God Through Prayer

During National Day of Prayer, millions of people across our country will be praying about what’s on their hearts. Many at Adventist Health will be praying too.

If you’re new to prayer or it’s been a while since you prayed, prayer may seem complicated. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as blurting out, “God, I need help here!”

At its most basic, prayer is turning away from fear, anxiety, and isolation and turning toward hope, help, and peace. You can pray in your thoughts or by speaking out loud. You can pray while you’re driving, exercising, working, or making dinner.

“Through prayer, we receive an extra measure of strength, wisdom, and encouragement to face the things that challenge our sense of well-being,” says Sam Leonor, Chief Mission Officer for Adventist Health. “When we face anxiety about our health or the health of family and friends, expressing our trust in God’s goodness and praying for God’s power to meet our needs provides peace, rest, and renewed hope.”

Connecting to God through prayer brings hope and peace near to us. But how do you begin?

• Start by pausing and taking a deep breath.
• Direct your thoughts toward God.
• Then say what you want to say. Ask for what you need.

Prayer can be long or short, simple or complex. You don’t have to edit your thoughts. You can just pour them out to God as they are. Anger. Fear. Questioning. Sadness. Worry.

“The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives — altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. … What I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We do not have to be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it,” wrote Richard Foster in Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home.

Your simple, honest prayers are powerful.