When Is The Best Time To Pray?

When I work with Christian married couples who are trying to heal their marriages, there are several components of my work that are almost always part of the process. As a pastoral counselor, it isn’t surprising that prayer is at the top of the list. I encourage couples to pray together and teach them how if they don’t know. Since my clients know who I am, I don’t usually get any arguments when I emphasize prayer.

There are other components of a typical marriage counseling process. Teaching and practicing communication and conflict resolution are also extremely common. These are very common in almost all marriage counseling, though not everyone wants to take the time and effort to learn how to effectively talk with each other and resolve their differences.

The real difficulty is when I combine these and tell my clients that the most important thing they can do in conflict resolution is stop and pray together when they begin to argue. Pray for the other, pray for your own attitude, pray that the Lord will guide you both and give you wisdom so you can resolve the issue and have a stronger relationship.

That’s hard to do! When we’re arguing we aren’t in “prayer mode”. But that’s why we need to do it!

That’s what we need to do right now in our society.

A large portion of people in this country are hurting. The anger we see flowing over is rooted in years of fear, pain and frustration. We need to hear each other, and then resolve our conflicts. 

But how do we do that?

We start with prayer. What would happen if, before we write an article, before we talk to someone, before we post or share on social media, before we protest or shout down the protesters, before we do something or decide to do nothing—we pray together?

What would happen if every Christian who doesn’t already have all the answers (trick question) sought out a Christian of a different color or background and asked to pray with them?

The world won’t do this. But Christians pray. So why don’t we pray together? 

Jesus’ disciples came from radically different places. Some of them not only hated each other but had a history of trying to kill each other before they followed him. I’m guessing it wasn’t easy to put all that aside. I suspect they needed—and got—help. They prayed. And they were able to love one another so much that others saw it and wanted to be part of what would cause that kind of love.

We can do that too. We’ll need help, so we should ask for it. Together.

Let’s pray.

1 Comment

  1. Mary Peralta on June 9, 2020 at 9:50 pm

    I try to remember that prayer should be the “first” resort, not the last! When I don’t remember and I try to fix/understand problems under my own power I fail with flying colors!
    When I pray first there is immediate calm that even though I have to wait for the answer my actions are the right thing.

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