How to Build a Prayer Life

When 16th-century saint Teresa of Avila was asked by her superiors to write a book on prayer, she famously quipped that there were already too many books on prayer.

Thankfully, she obeyed the desires of her superiors and went on to write some of the influential books in the history of the church and some of the bestselling books in the Spanish language.

Even more ironically, what she said in the 16th-century is even more true today. (In fact, even Chat GPT was unable to estimate how many books have been written on the topic of Christian prayer 😀.)

In addition to books too numerous to count, we have sermons, podcasts, blogs, prayer apps, email lists (😝), devotionals, and more resources on prayer than we could ever hope to read in our lifetimes.

With this much noise, we can easily fall into three temptations:

1. The temptation to read so much about prayer that we forget to actually pray.

2. The temptation to be so overwhelmed with how much information we have heard about prayer that we avoid actually praying.

3. The temptation to be so busy that we prioritize other things above prayer.

The first temptation is primarily for those who love to read and listen to podcasts, and those of us in this category fall into that trap of believing that information is the same as incarnation. It’s not!

The second temptation is for those plagued by shame and guilt around their prayer lives, who often feel like they should be praying more and thus it’s easier to avoid it, go to church, feel guilt and shame, and then repeat the cycle.

The third temptation is for those in the throes of their careers, motherhood and fatherhood, and the busyness of life. When life is full it’s too easy to lose the simple priority of prayer or to outsource it to church or small group time rather than to cultivate a personal practice of engaging with God.

I’d love to offer a simple way out for you if you find yourself in the middle of one of these temptations. Maybe take a moment and identify which resonates with you the most!

If you are in the first camp, I’d love to encourage you to take a break from consuming prayer content (except my email list, of course!) and set your intentions to pray for a certain amount of time each week.

If you are in the second camp, I’d love to encourage you with this: God loves you so much! He even likes you! Song of Songs 4:9 tells us that just one glance from our eyes ravishes his heart — it only takes a simple remembrance of God to bring a smile to his face. Get set free from guilt and shame and fall into the embrace of a Father who loves you! Prayer is simpler than you think!

If you are in the third camp, simply too busy to pray, I’d love to help cut through the noise and offer a simple three-step solution to get your prayer life back on track. You don’t need to pray for an hour every day to have a successful prayer life — even five minutes a day can alter the course of your prayer life.

Here are three simple steps to jump-start your conversation with God:

1. Pick a time and place.

I’ve found that if I intend to pray without setting the right rhythms and practices in place, it simply won’t happen. My inspiration and enthusiasm aren’t enough — especially in a season where I’ve got many demands on my time.

Full disclosure, I change my time and place often due to my personality type, but it has become a non-negotiable for me that no matter what, I have a time and place picked out.

I’m also a big fan of picking daily routines — going to the gym, commuting to work or home, doing the dishes, laying in bed at night — and intentionally redeeming the time and saying “This is now my prayer room.”

I’m also a big believer that even if you’re not a morning person (I’m not), even 7 minutes alone with God in the morning is enough to jump-start my prayer life simply because it orients our days around the voice of God.

So, where and when are you going to pray this week?

2. Pick a verse.

St. Ambrose famously said, “Just as in Paradise, God walks in the Holy Scriptures, seeking man.”

If prayer is a continual conversation with the living God, why not start with the place that he has most clearly started his conversation with you?

By picking a verse, I literally mean to pick one verse. The key to jump-starting a prayer life is not to be overly ambitious — a Bible-reading plan can become mentally overwhelming and for some personality types can make us more prone to avoid prayer!

Hot take: I feel skeptical of Bible reading plans where you have to read copious amounts of verses at once. While it’s good to know the Bible and it can be helpful to see the whole scope of a book or a story in a condensed way, I think these types of plans are better for dedicated seasons than in daily life.

My main skepticism is that trying to read a lot of the Bible at once and call it “prayer” is that it tends to fall into the Western myth that information is the same as incarnation; that reading about God is the same as knowing God. It’s simply not the case!

My encouragement to anyone looking to jump-start their prayer life is to pick a passage — Mark 1, John 1, or Psalm 1, and to read it as slowly as possible. Make it your goal to read one verse a day, or even less. Breathe in each word, let it sit in your heart, marinate in your soul, and learn it so inwards and outwards that you think about it randomly during the day. Maybe don’t even move on until you’ve memorized it!

Personally, I’ve been in the same verse from John 1 for about a week now, and I’m going to stay here as long as it takes. I want to live it before I leave it. I want it to saturate every part of my heart and every part of my life — my job, my marriage, my relationship with my kids, the way I think about my future — I want it to shape my whole life. And this takes time!

So, what verse are you going to start with this week?

3. Pick a person.

I’ll bet you a million dollars (or maybe $10 if you actually want to take me up on this) that if you sit every day with God for a month (even for 5 minutes a day) and you read verses as slowly as possible, God will speak to you.

I can’t tell you how or what or when, but I can simply say that God is so good at taking our little sacrifice of time and bringing his fire.

I feel so confident about this that I dare you to try it and write me if God doesn’t speak something to you this month.

But, it doesn’t stop there!

Hearing God isn’t meant to happen outside of the context of community. No one can follow Jesus by themselves. Hearing God is meant to be a community art as we learn how to become the dwelling place of God together (Ephesians 2:21-22).

So, the last step to jump-starting your prayer life is to pick a person that you could mention, if not every day, at least every other day, what God is speaking to you in your prayer life. Or what challenges you’re facing as you’re trying to cultivate this time. Or what is surfacing in your heart and emotions as you’re slowing down to listen.

Who can you talk to about your prayer life today?

If I could sum up these steps even simpler, I would say: Start talking to Jesus and don’t stop.

Keep signing up. Keep showing up. Keep the conversation going.

If you have a rich history with God and are aching to go deeper, this is your invitation to start again.

If you have simply been too busy that a daily prayer practice has become a last-minute thought rather than a priority, this is your challenge to begin again.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by guilt and that voice of shame that says you “should” be praying more, this is your invitation to lean into the loving arms of a Father and return to the simplicity of just being with Him.

Wherever you are in your prayer life, I pray that these steps help you come alive and live in love again with Jesus — the one who loves you more than you can ask, think, or imagine.

I hope these questions are helpful to you! If I can pray for you in any way, please don’t hesitate to hit “reply” to this email and let me know!

-Ryan

P.S. It is one of the greatest joys of my life to help people come alive and live in love with Jesus, especially by waking up to the continual conversation we get to enjoy with God. Our team is working on creating some beautiful prayer resources this year, starting with a daily prayer journal designed to help you grow in your ability to hear God’s voice. Please consider becoming a founding partner with us to receive every resource we create in 2025 completely free!