[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: Hello, my friend, it’s Hal Elrod. Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever prayed and wondered if anyone was listening? Or do you not pray at all because you don’t believe anybody is listening? Or maybe you’ve tried praying and you asked for something specific, but what you prayed for never came to pass and that further caused you to doubt or wonder if there was even a point to prayer. Look, whether you are a person of deep faith who praise daily or you’re more skeptical, maybe you’ve never prayed a day in your life, today’s episode is for you. We are diving into a question that has challenged minds and I’d imagine moved hearts and souls for centuries. Does prayer actually work?

Look, I just finished recording the episode that you’re about to listen to. And I have to say, I’m inspired. Like, this is one of my favorite episodes that I’ve ever recorded. Okay, here’s what you can expect in the next 30-ish minutes. The surprising science by now prayer affects your brain, body, and emotional wellbeing. I’m citing studies from Harvard, from Duke University, and others that show you that whether or not you even believe in God, there is scientific proof to the positive impacts of a daily regular prayer practice. Okay? What the research says, some of it might shock you.

I’m also going to share, and this is my favorite part, honestly, and I’m biased, but real-life stories, including from my own life, where prayer seemed to work in ways that I could not explain. I mean, you might be blown away. I’ve prayed for things that are very specific, that are monumental and on a specific timeline, that time and time and time again have come true. And so, that’s where for me, the belief in prayer, but also, I have skepticism because I prayed for a lot of things that didn’t come true, right? So, I’m going to address both sides of that coin, if you will.

I will also throw in a little bit of biblical wisdom for you today. I’m going to share practical tools to help you start or strengthen your own prayer practice. And most importantly, we’re going to talk about prayer might be the key to unlocking peace, purpose, and even miracles in your life. And I am not talking about magic or wishful thinking. I’m talking about something real, grounded, and deeply transformational. So, wherever you’re at, whether you’re in a season of faith or one of doubt or you’re searching for something more, I invite you to listen with an open mind and an open heart because by the end of this episode, you might just look at prayer in a whole new way.

Now, before we dive in, I want to take just a minute to ask you a question. Have you ever hit the snooze button in the morning so many times that you’re almost saying to yourself, I hate waking up in the morning so I do it over and over and over again. It’s a question actually, was asked by Demetri Martin, standup comedian. And here’s the deal. However your mornings start, you can improve them with the Miracle Morning app. It is the secret weapon to transform your mornings and maybe your entire life. So, with this app, you’ll go from groggy to glorious with six simple steps known as the SAVERS – silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing. And it’s a routine that you probably are aware of the Miracle Morning, it’s so transformative. But the app makes it like having Tony Robbins and me and a yoga instructor and a life coach, all in your pocket.

Need motivation? We’ve got 500-plus written affirmations for you, plus templates to create your own. Can’t find time to meditate? We will remind you and guide you through it. And if you still think journaling is just a dear diary, old outdated practice, not anymore with tons of journaling prompts to direct your focus and get you started. You’ll be joining tens of thousands of Miracle Morning app users who are using the app to elevate their mornings and their life.

So, what are you waiting for? Hit pause on snooze, stop scrolling on your phone and start saving your mornings. Download the Miracle Morning app today, use a Miracle Morning seven-day free trial to use the premium plus version and start turning every day into a miracle even beyond what you already are with your Miracle Morning practice using the Miracle Morning app. All right, goal achievers, let’s dive in today talking about the power of prayer. Does it work? How does it work? And how can you apply it in your life?

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: Hello, friends, welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. And today, we are talking about prayer. Now, from a scientific perspective, from a spiritual perspective, from a self-care perspective, so this is not just a one-sided view of prayer. We’re actually asking the question that I think has been debated for centuries, which is, does prayer actually work? Like, does it work? Are you just thinking? You just talking to yourself? And whether you’re someone who prays daily, or you’ve never once folded your hands and whispered to the sky, this episode is for you. And as always, my goal isn’t to convince you of what to believe, but it is to explore the possibility through personal stories, through research. I’ll even probably throw in some scripture as well. But the possibility of how prayer might be one of the most powerful tools available to us, which you may or not be using or maybe you’re underusing or maybe you’re overusing, I don’t know. Can you overuse? I don’t know if you can overuse prayer.

But in terms of who this is for and why it matters, again, maybe you already believe in prayer, but you’ve questioned its effectiveness or you felt discouraged when prayers went unanswered. I know that both of those for me, I definitely have questioned the effectiveness and I’ve had a lot of prayers that did not go answered. Although one of my favorite lines from a song, Garth Brooks, some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers, right? So, there is that. My wife often says, what does she say? Rejection is God’s protection, right? So, who knows?

Maybe you’re a believer in prayer, but you’ve questioned the effectiveness. We’ll talk about that. But maybe, you don’t believe in prayer at all. Maybe you’re even like clicking on this just to hear like, what is he going to say? Like, prayer doesn’t, it’s wishful thinking, it’s outdated religious dogma, right? Maybe that’s your perspective, and I totally get it. I’ve been there too. So, no matter where you land on the– let’s call it spiritual spectrum, prayer might work in more ways than you think. And I want to explore that together.

So, starting with just simple definition, what is prayer, broadly speaking, it is not just about asking for things, and hoping or praying or having faith that they will come true. Prayer can be gratitude. Prayer can be silence. Prayer can be surrender. It can be a conversation. It can be intention. So, there’s different types, different purposes for prayer. And in terms of types, you could break it down to really four, I’m sure we could probably think of more, but high level, four types of prayer. Number one is what’s called petition, right? That’s asking for something. God, please help me with my financial situation. God, please save my marriage. God, please heal me of this cancer. So, that’s petition. You’re asking for something.

Then there’s meditation. Meditative prayer is listening, right? That’s where you’re quieting your mind and potentially, your purpose may be for answers, for insights. And the argument there, or depending on how you look at it, it might be, well, the insights where some people are going, well, I want God, I want to hear from God, right? I’m asking God for clarity or guidance. And then some people might say, “Well, that’s just your own voice.” And what I would say, and this speaks to the value of prayer, whether or not you believe it’s God answering your prayers or wishful thinking. Like, if you quiet your mind and you pray for guidance, and then wisdom, an answer emerges. Whether or not that came from God or from your deepest wisdom or intuition, or maybe that’s one in the same, maybe there’s, where does the line end? The value of prayer, the value of meditative prayer is still there.

So, that’s what’s interesting. It’s like, do you need to get caught up in the source and go, well, no, no, no, I know for sure it’s God. And then someone else says, well, I don’t believe in God. And you go, okay. But if you quiet your mind and you pray each day looking for guidance and wisdom in a meditative state, you will inevitably gain answers and clarity that is extremely valuable, right? So, follow where I’m going there?

Another type of prayer, the third would be gratitude. And this is every day for me. I pray in a state of gratitude, I thank God every single day for every aspect of my life. And for whatever reason, just because it rhymes, it almost always starts with God, thank you for my life. Thank you for my wife, because again, they rhyme, right? Thank you for my children. Thank You for my health. Thank you for this breath. And so, again, I always want to speak to every type of person that I possibly can. So, like, if you’re an atheist, and you’re like, there is no God. You’re not thinking– well, I’ll tell you what, is it valuable? Yes, for me, when I get to express gratitude to God, I feel. In fact, just right now when I did that, I put my hands in kind of prayer and I said express gratitude to God, I got filled, F-I-L-L-E-D, filled with a state of gratitude and just love and I feel good, right?

So, the value in prayer extends beyond just the petitionary prayer where you’re hoping God’s going to answer the prayers and maybe if you didn’t have your prayers answered, maybe you prayed that someone in your life would live and they didn’t live, which I’ve had that happen when my sister died. Maybe you got jaded and you’re like, prayer doesn’t work, right? But the examples I’m giving you right now is the internal experience that prayer creates for us, it does work. That does work and it’s not dependent on an entity on God to answer it. The benefit is in the praying itself. The fourth type of prayer is what is known as intercession, which is praying for others.

So, petitionary is you’re asking for something. And by the way, intercession does fall under petitionary, where if you’re praying for something for someone else, right, that’s intercession prayer, where you’re paying for another person, but it’s also petitionary because you’re asking for something. You could also pray in a state of gratitude or clarity, right? So, basically, intercession is praying for others. But the first three types of prayer – petition, meditation, gratitude, those can all be applied in an intercessionary, I think that’s how you say it, manner, which is praying for other people.

I want to actually dive into the science first. And by the way, I’m going to share with you, I don’t think I mentioned this, I am going to share with some extraordinarily powerful stories from my own life that are hard to argue based on the specificity and the timing of when I have prayed for things, and then they’ve happened. And like, any self-doubt I had about prayer, I’m like, whoa, there’s no way that’s a coincidence, like, the magnitude of what was answered and the relative timing to how what was it, like, that you called a coincidence once, maybe twice, but like enough times and you got to look at the validity in what’s happening.

All right, but first the science. So, research on prayer, I’m going to cite three studies. Study number one, Harvard Medical School. This was a study of what’s called the relaxation response. And the relaxation response, this was published by the way in the Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. And the summary of this is that Dr. Herbert Benson, he’s a Harvard cardiologist, he found that prayer, meditation, and other spiritual practices elicit the relaxation response and can reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and help manage pain and anxiety.

So, again, whether or not God was answering a prayer, this was simply that, oh, wow, through scientific research, we found that patients who engaged in prayer, meditation, other spiritual practices, they elicited the relaxation response and they experienced measurable, again, this is a cardiologist, measurable reduction in stress, lower blood pressure, and helping to manage pain and anxiety. And a quote from that study is simply that repetitive prayer, so repetitive, not every once in a while when you’re like, God, I know I haven’t talked to you in three years, since the last time I needed help, but I need help. So, I’m going to pray, right? This is repetitive prayer, kind of like exercising for your soul, for your mental and emotional wellbeing. But repetitive prayer or mantra can trigger the relaxation response, counteracting stress and promoting healing. All right. And if you want to look that up, you can just Google Herbert Benson, that’s the doctor. Relaxation response, you could read that study.

The second study I want to cite is from Duke University Medical Center. And this study was the handbook of religion and health. That’s where it was published. And it was Duke University, their center of spirituality, theology, and health. That’s where it came from. That’s who conducted the study. There were over 1,600 studies reviewed showing people who pray regularly have lower levels of depression and anxiety, better coping in illness, faster recovery from surgeries, and improved overall wellbeing. So, again, this is reframing how most people think of prayer, which they think of the petitionary type of prayer which is like, I ask God for stuff, I don’t get it, right? Or it doesn’t work or I don’ believe in God, so there’s no point in asking into the ethos, right? No, this is showing– the Harvard study shows reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, helping manage pain and anxiety. The Duke University study shows lowering levels of depression and anxiety, similar to Harvard, better coping in illness and faster recovery from surgeries and improved overall wellbeing. So, again, the benefits are undeniable, they’re scientifically proven.

And then there’s a third study that was a little controversial. And I wanted to include this one because I’m not trying to just sway towards one way of thinking, I am literally trying to examine prayer as a topic from multiple sides. And this study was called the step study. Forgot what steps, I thought I wrote that down. Oh, study of therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer. That’s what it’s standing for. So, this was praying for other people. So, this is interesting. This goes much more along the lines of asking God for something. And this was specifically asking God for other people to have benefits. And there were multiple groups, three groups that were in this study, 1,800 patients, by the way, that were undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery were studied.

Number one, the first group was they were prayed for and they knew it. So, they knew someone was praying for their outcome to be positive. Number two was the group was they were prayed for but they didn’t know it. So, they weren’t aware that other people were praying for a positive outcome. And then there was a third group that was not prayed for at all. And the findings were mixed results.

So, no clear benefits for those who were prayed for. And the patients who knew they were being prayed for, now they had slightly more complications. And that possibly, the study concluded it could have been due to performance anxiety or pressure. Meaning, again, they knew they’re being prayed for, they new they’re part of a study. And so, they were wondering if that added stress where they’re like, oh my gosh, I don’t want to let this person down who’s praying for me, right?

So, the point is, the interpretation is that while the results weren’t conclusive, they sparked healthy debates on how prayer works and perhaps, not always in physical outcomes, but in internal transformation. And I will tell you this, I’ll use this to segue into my personal stories. So, I prayed, when my sister, 18-month-old sister, when she was dying, I was praying God– and my mom, of course, praying God, please don’t take my sister. And if you don’t know that story, it was a Saturday morning, I was eight years old. I woke up to my mother screaming from her bedroom, “My baby, my baby. Oh, my baby, God. Don’t take my baby.” I ran in the bedroom. She was performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on my 18-month-old baby sister. It was just me, my mom, and Amory, my sister, at home.

And that morning, Amory died, on the way to the hospital. I don’t know exactly when the moment of death was. I don’ know if it was in that moment. I don’t know if it was on the way to the hospital in the ambulance, but she died that morning. And of course, again, my mom and me, my dad, we were all praying for Amory to be alive. And of course, she passed away. From that experience, as tragic as it was, my mother led a support group for other parents who had lost children. So, she helped in that way. It helped spark a purpose in my life that I wanted to be like my mom and my dad and I wanted to help other people when I had my car accident and the tragedies that I underwent.

So, that’s an example of praying for someone else and not seeing the result that we wanted. And then the stories that I’m going to share beyond that were all in my own life, personally praying for outcomes and results in own life that came true in these unexpected ways. And so, I’m not, I don’t have a clear conviction of like, this is what prayer is. This is how it works. This is how it doesn’t work. This is when it works and like, I don’t exactly know that. For me, it’s more questioning and having faith based on some of the outcomes I’ll share with you right now.

And the first, of course, or not the first ever, but my car accident at 20 years old, hit head on by a drunk driver, found dead at the scene, came out of a coma six days later to find out I had 11 broken bones, told I would never walk again, right? So, how did prayer show up? Well, I prayed that I would walk again. I prayed that my body would heal. And this has led me to, I guess, believe. Believe is a strong word, because I wouldn’t bet my children’s life on this. I don’t know it, I guess I have faith or believe in this direction, which is the mind-body connection. and the spirituality that we’re able to activate through prayer in our own body.

And there have been studies. In fact, I’m now kicking myself. I did not look for these particular types of studies. But there have been studies in the mind-body connection and how people through, they’ve been able to heal themselves. So, meaning, right, like, and here’s the best way I’d heard it described, that our bodies have trillions of cells and they do our bidding. And that’s why stress is often a cause of physical ailments and illness, right? Because when you’re thinking, and if you imagine prayer even is just a– it’s like a form of thought, or if you pray out loud, right, it is a form communication, I guess, I don’t know how to say that exactly.

But the point is that studies have been done that have shown, and I have read these studies, it’s been years, I can’t quote them. Because I was curious, like could I have healed my own body? Like, is that a thing? So, the idea that– I had unwavering faith, I prayed with unwavering faith that my cells would heal. And I prayed, God, please heal my cells. I have faith that a miracle is possible, that the doctors may be experts in medicine, but they’re not experts in me. They don’t know what my body is capable of. I don’t even know what it’s capable of. And God, if you’re there, here listening, maybe you know what its capable of, but I pray that I heal.

And then what happened was, three weeks after I was found dead at the scene, broke 11 bones, femur broke in half, My arm, my humerus bone behind the bicep broken in two pieces. So, I had two bones that broke in half that they reattached with a metal rod. And three weeks later, the doctors came, after they had told my parents that I was never going to walk again and my parents said, “Hal believes he can walk again.” And the doctor said, “You got to get through to your son. He’s living in a state of delusion. The odds are he’s never going walk again and he needs to accept that if he’s going to heal emotionally, the physical healing, right, that’s happening gradually, but he’s not probably going to walk again.”

So, three weeks after the crash, after I had argued with the doctor’s prognosis and I had had faith that I was going to walk again, and I prayed about it literally every single day, the doctors came in with routine x-rays and they said, “We don’t know how to explain this Hal, but your body is healing so quickly. Like, it’s healed in the last three weeks in a way we can’t even explain. You’re ready to take your first step in therapy.” So, y’all, I want you to consider that, okay? And you could justify, ah, if someone’s skeptical, like, oh, that’s just a coincidence or your body just happened to heal or whatever, right? And I could argue that too. Like, I don’t have any proof, I don’t know. I didn’t see my body healing. Internally, I didn’t know what it was doing.

But the point is to be, as having my bones broken, my pelvis broken three places, the leg broken half, on and on. being told by doctors, experts, that are analyzing the breaks and the trauma and saying, “You’re probably never going to walk again.” And then not only do I walk again, but it’s three weeks after the crash. Like, other than a miracle, other than the power of prayer, whether that is me healing my own body through the power Of God, or it’s God healing, I don’t know, I don’t know, right? But that’s my first example. I’m going to go through the rest relatively quickly. Well, Hal, we’ll see. You can take the over-under on that.

Another prayer, Carl’s motorcycle. I was going to buy a motorcycle. It was about a year and a half after my car accident. I was going to buy a street bike, a really fast street bike. And my parents, I told them and they’re like, I was 21 at the time, I think, or no, maybe, actually, yeah, I think, it was a year after my accident. I was like 21, I think. And my buddy Carl was selling his motorcycle. It was a Suzuki GSX-R600 and I told my parents and they said, “Hal, absolutely not. You’ve already cheated death once. That is so dangerous. Don’t do it again.” And I’m 21 years old. I also had brain damage, right? I didn’t have very good judgment after my car accident. Still don’t. You could argue to this day.

But I ended up, I said, “Mom and dad, I don’t want to live in fear. I’ve wanted a motorcycle for a long time. I’m not going to not pursue that because I almost died, like I’m going to live my life–” And so, my parents called my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents. They called everybody that they know and they said, “Please call Hal. Tell him please, beg him to not buy this motorcycle.” So, my aunts, my uncles, they’re calling me out of the woodwork. The year was 2001, I think. So, I don’t even know if we were texting back then. No, probably not. And so, they’re calling me and they’re saying, hey, your dad said. Don’t put your parent– and they’re saying, like they’re leveraging, don’t put your parents through this. So, I’m really struggling with this. And I’m going, I really want a motorcycle, I don’t want to live in fear. I also don’t want to worry my parents. I don’t know what to do.

So, y’all, listen to this. The morning of, the morning that I was supposed to go drive, I had like a 45-minute drive to meet Carl and get the motorcycle from him. I prayed. I said, God, I literally like knelt down by my bed. I can picture the apartment, the bedroom where I was. I said God, I know my parents don’t want me to get this motorcycle and my grandma and my uncles and aunts and everybody’s calling. They don’t want to me to get the motorcycle, but I really want it. Like, if I’m not supposed to get this, please give me a sign. And it has to be a dramatic sign because otherwise, I’m not going to notice it. Like, I don’t know what that is Lord, but give me some sort of. dramatic sign. And I said, “Thank you, God.”

And so, basically, I had to go drive, I had a few appointments in between, and then I’m going to go get the motorcycle. So, I leave my apartment. It’s maybe been five minutes after I prayed for a dramatic sign that would tell me to not get the motorcycle. And I’m driving down the road, all of a sudden, a car going 50 miles per hour smashes into the side of my Nissan Xterra. And my car goes spinning through the intersection, knocks over the stop sign on the corner. And I’m obviously shook and I’m, what the– I didn’t even know what just happened. Like, the guy came from the side and luckily, he didn’t T-bone me in the door. I probably would have re-broken all the bones from my car accident, but he hit me on the front corner of the car which ironically is where my head-on collision happened. But he came kind of more from the side than head-on.

And so, my first thought, I look around, what happened? What happened? And this another car ran out and go, “Hey, it wasn’t your fault. This person ran the red light and turned and smashed into your car.” And my immediate thought, and it was almost felt like the thought was from God, it was from my consciousness was, if you had been on that motorcycle, you would be dead right now. And so, as soon as I– the police came, they took a report, and I called Carl, I said, “Hey, Carl, I was just in a car accident, I prayed to God for a dramatic sign as to whether or not I should buy your motorcycle. And someone ran a red light five minutes after I prayed for the sign and crashed into my car. And if I was on your motorcycle, I’d be dead. And so, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t buy the motorcycle.”

Now, again, analyzing that, like what can you– coincidence maybe, like manifestation, is that part of prayer? Did I manifest that? And I don’t know that I’m an expert in manifestation. Actually, I think I’m pretty good at doing it. I don’t know how to teach it. So, it’s not my expertise of teaching, right? But I don’t know, what’s the connection? So, you take it for what it’s worth. That’s another prayer story, another example. The Miracle Morning Book, of course, I prayed to God that it would change 1 million lives. And it was in one year, the year that I published The Miracle Morning book, my goal, I prayed. My mission was to change 1 million lives one morning at a time.

At the end of that year, I had sold 13,000 copies. This is an example of praying for something that did not come true in the timeframe that I asked that I petitioned God for, right? I said, “God, please make this come true. I want to sell million books this year.” And I sold 13,000 copies. So, do the math, I was 987,000 copies short of my goal. I was discouraged and I said, “God, I mean, I have faith that my timing was off. But if I continue to maintain unwavering faith and put forth extraordinary effort, which I call the miracle equation, I have faith, that in your perfect timing, I will eventually be able to reach 1 million people with The Miracle Morning book.”

And you may know that story, how it finishes out. It took six years to sell a million copies and reach a million people. And it felt like the timing was perfect. I went, “Thank you, God.” I realized that I was asking for it to happen in a year and that wasn’t realistic. I had to develop relationships that led to opportunities, right? And it had to take six years. In hindsight, I can look back and see how the path unfolded perfectly. And God, thank you for answering my prayer. I’m glad that I didn’t lose faith after that first year. And that’s something for you to consider, right? When you pray for something to happen, I really believe that maintaining unwavering faith in what you’re praying for and putting forth extraordinary effort for as long as it takes until, the word until is operative in achieving extraordinary miraculous results, if you will. So, that’s another prayer.

Couple others, my agent, I actually call her my angel. I prayed for a traditional publishing deal at the end of– after my main chemo journey, like the first year of having cancer and going through the 700 hours of chemo, at the end of the year, I was setting my goals and I prayed, God, I would love for a traditional publisher to be able to work with them on The Miracle Equation book. I want to write a book called The Miracle Equation because that’s how I beat cancer. And it’s how I achieved all these other extraordinary goals and results in my life, and I want to teach other people.

So, I would love a traditional publisher to partner with me on that so I can get it out there in a bigger way and reach more people. And I’m not kidding you, y’all. It was a week later, my agent reaches out and goes, “Hal, I don’t know if you have another book in mind, but Penguin Random House, who you turned down on The Miracle Morning rights, they want to partner with you. And they’re asking if you have another book that you want to write. And would you be willing to work with the traditional publisher?” And I go, “Celeste,” I go, “this is crazy. A week ago, I was praying that this exact thing would happen. And now, you’re emailing me out of the blue with exactly what I prayed for, like wild.”

And then I won’t go into it. Well, there’s another story of like three years later, there was another thing I wanted to do with publishing. I prayed for it. In my journal, in writing, I said, “God, I don’t know how, but I need a miracle for this to happen. I’m in fear because I just took on more debt than I should have. I don’ know if I made a mistake and I don’t know how, but I’m praying for a miracle that you would help me pay off this debt so that I could not live in fear and I can focus on helping more people.” And it was about a week later, that same agent reached out and said, “Hal, this is wild, but this company reached out. This is very untraditional. And they want to partner with you and they are willing to invest X amount of dollars,” which y’all, it was almost the exact– it was a little over the amount of money that I needed to cover the debt that I prayed God to help me with. And I’m not making any of this up and I’m not exaggerating any of this and I am not embellishing any of this.

I’ve also prayed for things like my daughter and I’s relationship being repaired. But again, I had to put forth the extraordinary effort to repair that relationship. And again, I’ve also had countless prayers that didn’t get answered, at least not directly. One of my favorite quotes, and I don’t know who said it is that sometimes the miracle isn’t that life changes, it’s that we change. And that’s the consideration, right? Does prayer work? We have to redefine the word work when asking that question, right? If prayer doesn’t give you everything you ask for, does that mean it didn’t work? Or does it work in deeper ways?

And my goal was in exploring this episode and in sharing with you those real-life examples, right? I think anecdotal evidence is one of the most underrated evidences. We explored the science of prayer today. And then I gave you those real-life examples. And I mentioned scripture, which I don’t want to pass over this, like some of the quotes from the Bible, one from Philippians, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. That sums up how I pray. I’ll say it again. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. That is how I pray every morning and every night. It starts with gratitude, with thanks. It’s a feeling, and this is one of the benefits, a feeling of surrender of God.

I say, almost every night when I say grace at dinner, “God, thank you for protecting me, providing for me, and blessing me and always being, like never letting me down,” right? Like, it’s this gratitude. And if it would serve humanity and my family and me and the greater good and your will, I’m petitioning for this outcome or something better if it is your will, right? So, whether or not, up until this point, you’ve prayed, and again, I know many listeners, I’m sure. I don’t know what our percentage is. Maybe it’s half, 70, or 80, I don’ know, right? Prayer might be a part of your life already.

But what I am going to encourage you in terms of some action steps right now, simple, actionable steps, set a time. So, step number one, if you’re taking notes, write this down. Like, don’t let this episode, just don’t let it fall away. Again, even if you are skeptic, like, I gave you some pretty rock-solid evidence, both scientific and anecdotal from my own life that would say, ah, maybe it’s worth actually giving it a shot. So, set a time. And it doesn’t like, it could be two minutes in the morning or night or both, whatever, but two minutes that you’re set. Like, right now, grab your phone, set a two-minute timer, recurring timer every day, in the morning, in the evening for two minutes. If you do the Miracle Morning, this would be part of your silence. For me, silence is prayer and meditation, and they’re often blended together.

Number two, I encourage you, especially if you’ve never prayed before and you’re like, I don’t even know how to pray. Talk to God like a friend. Hey, God, I don’t know you, right? So, when I say like a friend, maybe it’s like, it might be, we haven’t talked before, I don’t know you, right? Nut like a friend in terms of something you’re striving to develop a friendship with. It makes it just easier in terms of if you’re intimidated by prayer because you haven’t done it before, just talk to God, like you would a friend. Hey! I want to get to know you better. I want a relationship with you. This is awkward for me. Not sure if I’m doing it right, right? So, just don’t put pressure on yourself. It’s not like there’s a wrong or a right way necessarily.

Writing it down. That’s number three. My encouragement, write it down. So, number one, set a time. Number two, talk to God like a friend. Number three, write it down. Journaling your prayers is powerful. That prayer where I prayed to for– I literally wrote for some kind of miracle to alleviate this financial stress I had by taking on this huge debt. And I mean, it was buying a home that I thought we could afford and then I realized that I had gone way over my head. But my family, we were like, we were in it and I was like, what did I do? I have to pay this mortgage for 30 years, right?

So, I journaled it in writing. And I find that’s– and just again, no pressure. It’s free writing where you just start writing, you’re like, hey, God, and just write it out. I want to ask you for some stuff. I want to thank you for some stuff, but do it in writing. Number four, and I have five action steps for you right here. Number four is include silence. And what I mean is, and you might write this down, make space to listen, right? The other day, I normally don’t meditate for– like, I haven’t meditated for extended periods in a while, and that’s me just going, I got too much to do, right? So, I fall prey to that. I’m like, I’m going to meditate for five minutes, a minute or two of prayer or two minutes of prayer, three minutes of meditation.

And then recently, I was like, I need to get back to 20-minute meditations. I really need to get back to it. And so, this is a few weeks ago, and my very first 20-minute meditation, the first few minutes, my mind is chattering and racing. And so, I’m not getting a lot of value from it. And I realized, oh, this is what I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing these short meditations where I’m actually not going very deep And then I always have my journal when I meditate next to me in case something does come through me, which it usually does, but wow, the 20-minute meditation, it was somewhere, after like around minute seven that I start having these insights, this wisdom as I’m listening, I’m open, I’m not trying to think of something, I’m trying to quiet my mind to create space, and I’ve prayed already for guidance and wisdom.

So, I start the meditation with prayer, thanking God, praying for guidance and wisdom, then I keep my mind quiet and open, and it is incredible that when you actually make space to listen, the insights, the wisdom that comes into your consciousness, and then I grab my journal and I write it down. And then number five, and this is optional, all of this is optional, of course, but pray for others, right? Pray for others. Shift the focus outward. I pray for my children. I want to say every day, but that wouldn’t be true. I don’t remember to do it every day. But I do pray for them more often than not. So, I pray for my children. I pray for my wife, I pray for my parents, I pray for humanity. But typically, I pray– the humanity piece is like, it’s short. It’s mostly, I put energy into– someone on my team, by the way, has cancer right now. I’ve been praying for her on a regular basis that God will heal her body of cancer the way that God healed my body of cancer.

All right. So, you don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t give up perfection for progress. Just start. Even a whisper is a prayer. A thought can be a prayer. And so, kind of final takeaway, the recap here. Science shows that prayer can improve your mental and emotional health. Scripture shows that it is core to a spiritual life and personal stories show that it is real and that it works in unexpected and indescribable ways.

So, whether you’re a lifelong believer or brand new to the idea, and I say believer in prayer, I challenge you try praying every day this week, just once a day, two minutes, and see what shifts either inside of you or around you. And I’ll leave you with this quote from C.S. Lewis. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us. All right, goal achievers, I love you more than you know. God bless you. May you have a phenomenal week. May you pray every day and may your prayers transform you from the inside out. I will talk to you next week.

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