How to Stay Focused When You Pray

While praying, has your mind ever drifted off to your to-do list? Have you been distracted by notifications on your phone or just lost your place and forgot what you were praying about? If so, in today's episode, I want to offer you some practical tips that you can implement to stay focused when you pray. 

1. Remove Distractions

The first tip to stay focused when you pray is to remove distractions. If your phone keeps ringing or going off, put it on silent, or if it's really bad, then just put your phone in an entirely different room.

It's important to be intentional about recognizing what your distractions are and then addressing them. If you have a family, communicate and let them know, when you plan to pray, if you're concerned that they may interrupt. Now, I know some of you have small children or toddlers, and I understand that there is no compromise with them. If that’s the case for you, I suggest choosing a time to pray when you may be least likely to be distracted, like when they are asleep. Now I understand some things of course will be completely out of your control, but as much as you possibly can, be intentional about limiting distractions but give yourself grace.

2. Pray for Help to Stay Focused

The second tip I have for you to stay focused when you pray is actually one of my favorites and it's super simple: ask God to help you stay focused. Yes, that’s right. Pray for help to pray!

We can pray about absolutely anything. Sometimes we feel like we have to come to God in prayer and be so perfect when we approach Him. But just let God know from the beginning of your prayer that you have a lot on your mind and you need help with focusing. Don't you know that God wants to help you focus? Don't you know that He wants you to be in a position where you can clearly hear from Him?

So if you're finding yourself distracted and losing focus as you pray, ask God to help you. If anybody is going to be able to help you, trust me, it's Him. 

3. Give Yourself Grace When You Do Get Distracted

The next way we can stay focused during prayer is to give ourselves grace when we do find that we’ve become distracted.

If you find your mind wandering off and you realize you’ve lost focus, reel yourself back in and just say, “Okay, I got a little distracted. Let me get back focused on God.” The point is that you don't want to give life to distractions by making a big deal about becoming distracted. You don't want to be so focused on the fact that you got distracted, that you just continue to stay in that distracted place by beating yourself up about it. 

When you realize you've become distracted, take a deep breath, give yourself some grace, and remember that you're doing a good thing by praying in the first place and keep praying. 

4. Keep a Prayer Schedule 

The next tip I would give you to stay focused when you pray is to keep a prayer schedule by choosing what days or times you want to pray about certain things. At one point, I had reminders on my phone that would pop up for me to pray for certain things on certain days. So when it was time for me to pray, I already knew what I was going to pray about so I didn't have to risk losing focus by spending too much time wondering what I was going to pray about in the first place. Of course, if the Holy Spirit leads you to pray about something else, then do that but having a schedule is a great way to stay on task and minimize loss of focus.

5. Don’t Give Up

The next tip to stay focused during prayer is to not give up. If you're experiencing a high level of lack of focus, when it comes to your prayer life, it could very well be a spiritual attack. The enemy knows that you're gaining power and strength every time you go to the Lord in prayer, and he might be using distraction and loss of focus to discourage you from praying to God. Don't let that happen. Push through and you keep praying. James 4:7-8 tells us

6. Grow in Prayer

My last tip on staying focused when you pray is to allow yourself to grow in prayer. A focused prayer life is something that we work up to. So start small and work your way up to more longer focused prayers. Start with a commitment to a 5 minute prayer, and then 10 minutes and when you get the hang of that, 15. Start simple and small. We serve a God who can move mountains with the faith the size of a mustard seed so don’t underestimate the power of starting simple and small. Praying a distracting unfocused prayer is better than no prayer at all because at least if you’re trying you are actively working your prayer muscle up to get stronger. But you can’t get stronger in your prayer life if you don’t pray at all and if you’re waiting for the perfect prayer life then you’ll never get started. 

The point is not to put pressure on yourself, to feel like you have to have these perfectly focused prayers all the time. Start small, be patient with yourself and you will get there. God does not need much to do much. So if five minutes of focused prayer is all you have to give God right now, know that He cherishes every single minute. 

Now I’d love to hear from you. How do you stay focused when you pray? Let’s encourage one another in the comments.

Before you go, I want to invite you to download my free 5-day prayer guide so you can put into practice what we’ve learned today about prayer and see how just like breathing, prayer can become a natural life-giving part of your everyday life. Simply click the free resources link in the description of this video. 

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Thank you so much for watching today and until next time, be beautiful, be blessed, and beloved.