Summer Sorensen

As a Christian, I know that prayer is essential. I realize it is key to a vital, growing relationship with God. Yet, my prayer life has gone through many seasons of dryness. I’ve struggled to pray with the passion and consistency I know I ought to, that the Bible calls Christ’s followers to do. Part of my challenge was not finding a system that worked well for me.

That all changed a little over a year ago when I found an article from one of my favorite bloggers, Tim Challies, on PrayerMate.

PrayerMate is an app that helps you create prayer lists by category, as well as organize them and schedule how many items on each you wish to pray for each time you pray. It even suggests topics to get you started. I found that it was just the tool I needed to organize my prayers.

I struggled historically with being overwhelmed by the number of things and people for whom I wished to pray.

When I would create a massive list, I felt obligated to pray through it each time, and it was so large that I quickly gave up. PrayerMate solves that dilemma via the scheduling function I mentioned. The idea of breaking things into categories and praying for only a specified amount of items each time seems straightforward, but it was a concept that had alluded me.

The freedom to spread all my prayer items out over multiple sessions not only eased the self-imposed pressure I felt, but it also gave me the freedom to add more categories to my prayers.

As a result, I am praying for a lot more things and people, and with much higher frequency than I was before.

Here is a sample of the prayer lists I have:

1. Biblical prayers – prayers directly from passages of Scripture that I pray for others or myself, as well as biblical prayers written by others (PrayerMate has a feed of different prayers you can subscribe to)
2. My Walk with God – specific prayers for areas of spiritual growth for me personally, including sin areas to conquer
3. Family and Friends – where I bring before the Lord requests from loved ones, as well as additional items for which I pray for them.
4. My Church – prayers for church staff and members of my life group
5. Non-believers – prayers for those who do not yet have a personal relationship with Christ
6. World Mission – prayers for missionaries and mission organizations that we support or are familiar with
7. Personal – this category is where I pray for my own requests

I update each category as needed. As I get updates from friends, I edit the details of the request. If prayer is answered, I praise God for it and sometimes choose to delete it. Although, *epiphany* I should and will add an additional category for answered prayers, so I can look back on those and praise God for the ways He has worked.

I can say with confidence that this app has revolutionized my prayer life.

I was hesitant to use it at first because praying from an app somehow seemed too informal or irreverent.  However, I realized that a) my prayer life desperately needed help, and b) this seemed to be what I required; c) whatever gets the job done should not be lightly esteemed. I am so, so glad I decided to give it a try.

In the past year or so since I have been using PrayerMate, I’ve found my times of prayer to be deeper and richer.

It has been a wonderful blessing to be able to expand the frequency and amount of prayer items I cover, beyond just praying for myself. I’ve also found that increased time in prayer has deepened my relationship with God.

A prayer app might not be the thing for you. But maybe it is. I share this with you because I want to pass on the blessing, as it was passed on to me from the article I read. I will prayerfully trust God to use it as He wills to accomplish His purposes.

p.s. my prayer life is currently under further construction as a result of a few books I am reading. It is some exciting stuff that I will likely be sharing here in the weeks and months to come.

Thanks for reading! Here’s to a prayer-fueled 2018!

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts and comments on this topic.