10 Ways Prayer Strengthens Your Bond with the Lord

Prayer is vital to our communication with God. It deepens our relationship with God and strengthens our spiritual connection with him. Regular prayer helps us with our emotional stability and peace, and helps us understand God’s character and purpose.

It doesn’t have to be perfect, just honest and heartfelt. That’s all he asks for. I think sometimes people think prayer has to be a formal, stoic thing. Or they get so uptight about it, they don’t know what to pray. I once heard Joyce Meyer speak on this, and she said that you can go into a room by yourself in the stillness and quiet and say, “Here I am.” Prayer doesn’t always have to involve words. Emotions or silence are enough.

We don’t always have to pray alone, either. It’s good for couples to pray together for their lives. Parents should pray for their children, and we should pray for our friends and family members as well. In doing this, we strengthen our bond with God and each other.

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We all mess up sometimes and make mistakes. Just because we are Christians doesn’t make us perfect. We must go to the Lord daily and repent of our sins and mistakes. This helps us twofold.

One is that by repenting and praying for forgiveness, we open our hearts to God’s mercy, which restores our peace and joy. Two, it pleases God when we tell him what we did wrong. He forgets what we have done, and life goes on.

Does this mean he won’t make us go through something to learn a lesson? No, not at all. Sometimes our mistakes cause us to go through storms to learn a lesson and to learn to lean on him even more. In going through things, we learn and grow, which is what he wants for us.

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Another way that prayer cements our bond with God is when we seek his guidance. One key factor in this is living our lives according to Scripture. This means living in obedience, faith, and submission to God’s plan.

 It’s very easy to get caught up in our plans, and when things don’t go well, we wonder why. This is because we haven’t aligned our will with God’s will. Meaning we haven’t consulted with him before making a big decision.

Instead, we should pray and ask God for His will for us. This could be about an opportunity that’s come up that you want to pursue, a person in your life that you aren’t sure about, someone you’re dating.

I’m not saying this is easy; it’s not. I’ve had several opportunities in my life that I wanted to work out, but they didn’t. As disappointed as I’ve been from time to time, I also realize that they weren’t in God’s will for me.

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Relying on God can be difficult sometimes, especially when your life is falling apart because of job loss, sickness, broken automobiles, or whatever else life throws at you. This is when we need to rely on and trust God the most. We should rely on God all the time, whether life is good or bad.

Instead of reacting to the situation, we should pray to the Lord. I’m not saying we can’t have feelings about a situation; we can. However, we shouldn’t let those feelings rule us. We should pray about it once we have time to react and let God take it from there.

On the other hand, if something good is happening, we should immediately thank God for blessing us or providing for us when we need it.

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This is a powerful way to connect with God while cultivating thankfulness and appreciation. Shifting our focus from our problems to our blessings gives us a more positive outlook.

We can express gratitude for all kinds of things, both big and small. It could be something small, like the items you need on a quick, in-between grocery trip being on sale, or something big, like a promotion.

Expressing gratitude through prayer brings more peace and joy to our lives.

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Carving out some time to be still before God is important, especially in our busy lives. Not only can we still hear his voice in our hearts, souls, and minds, but we can also hear his voice clearly. Silence creates a sacred space to be with God.

This way, we can center ourselves and pray honestly without distraction. We can speak to God about things that are personal to us that others may not even know about. It’s a time to be honest, raw, and open with God and listen closely to his answer.

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Confession plays several roles in Christianity. There is a confession of sin and a confession of faith.

When we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness, it draws us closer to the Lord as we rely on his help not to repeat the offense or offenses.

“Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.” (Psalm 32:5, NLT)

We also deepen our relationship with the Lord by confession of faith.

“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God and by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10, NLT)

Whether we confess our sins or faith, we strengthen our relationship with God.

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Intercessory prayer is one of my favorite kinds of prayer. It involves praying to God for another person and asking for guidance, strength, comfort, and healing for someone.

I love praying to God on other people’s behalf, and when I do, I feel closer to him and the person I’m praying for. Sometimes, I know how things work out; other times, I don’t. In those situations, I have to trust that I’m not supposed to know, let it go, and trust God to intervene according to his will.

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Another way prayer helps us grow a stronger bond with God is by helping us better understand ourselves. How do we do this? We can ask God to open our hearts and show us what we need to work on. In letting him reveal the things we need to work on, we learn more about ourselves and him. Here are some verses to help you ask him and get started.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” (Psalm 139:23, NLT)

Thank God that he wants to get to know you so well. Ask him to show you the troubled areas of your heart. Also, ask him to help you leave your cares, worries, and troubles at the foot of the cross daily.

“Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the things he has done for me.” (Psalm 103:2, NLT)

Ask God to help you remember everything he’s done for you and praise him daily for it.

“Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the everlasting paths of life.” (Psalms 139:24, NLT)

Ask God to point out the known and unknown sins in your life so that you can repent, grow, and change as you learn and strive to be more like him.

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Prayer is also an excellent way to hear from God about where he wants us to take action in our communities. God calls us to love and serve others, but sometimes we don't know where our talents and gifts are best used.

This is when we need to pray and ask him to lead us to the right opportunities to serve others. In doing so, we will have clarity on where to serve and draw closer to him and others.

In many ways, prayer helps strengthen our bond with the Lord while correcting our hearts, confessing our sins, and providing opportunities to serve and love others like he does. We know we will always be on the right path if we keep praying and listening.

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