Practical Prayer

Relationships flourish when both parties are actively present and fully engaged, transcending sporadic interactions. Similarly, prayer is intended to be a continual dialogue with God, not confined to liturgical settings or times of distress. God, in His infinite love and respect for our free will, invites us into a deeper communion with Him. He patiently anticipates our response, for while He remains ever-present, true intimacy with Him deepens when we consciously participate in this divine relationship.

Quick Tips:

1. Build Prayer Into Your Routine

2. Fill Your Home with Reminders of God

3. Use Your Technology for Good

4. Read the Bible—Keep It Simple

5. Join a Prayer Community

6. Offer Your Work to God

7. Embrace Silence

Raleigh then shares her favorite formula for prayer: remember P.R.A.Y.

P – Praise: Thank God for who He is

R – Reconcile: Ask for forgiveness

A – Ask: Bring your needs and desires

Y – Yield: Surrender your will to God’s

Experts from The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Prayer and Mentioned Quotes: 

CCC 2559: "Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God."

CCC 2565: "In the New Covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit."

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone" -Blaise Pascal

“If you don’t have time to pray and read the scriptures, you are busier than God ever intended you to be.” -Matthew Kelly

Reflection Questions: How are you currently prioritizing prayer in your life?

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EMAIL: thegloryandthegrindpod@gmail.com
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Glory and the Grind, the podcast where we explore the beauties and the struggles of living out our Catholic faith. I'm your host, Carly Flynn.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

And I'm also here, Riley Poche. Hi. We're just two friends finding grace in the grind of motherhood and ministry. While taking time for ourselves. Not really. Not really. That's like when we get to like ride in the car alone for like four minutes and that's like our retreat. That's it. Yeah. Love it. We I know. We take your questions from life in the grind and look for the glory woven into your story. So let's dive into some moments where holiness and hot messes meet. All right, Raleigh.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I have got an icebreaker for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

I've been looking forward to this all week.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Oh, have you? Great. I'm so glad. So today's topic, friends, just to give you a little sneak peek, we are going to be talking about prayer. So I wanted my icebreaker to be a little bit about prayer. So, Raleigh, here it is. If you were praying to our Lord and you could decide how he responds to you in terms of a message, what medium of message would you prefer to receive from the Lord? And you can go in wherever your imagination takes you, but like, is he texting you? Is he sending you a heartfelt letter in his own handwriting? Tell me what you got.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I want I want a voice memo. I've been using voice memo to talk to people so much more lately. I don't know if it's a millennial thing, but I want a like Jesus is just like trying to fold his clothes, but also like tell me this really long story. I want a voice memo from Jesus. That is what I want.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

That would be fantastic. Right? And you can save it. That's what I was gonna say though. I think that's why I'd rather something in text, maybe not a text message, but like a word, a piece of paper, maybe. I don't know. I I kind of like the idea of a letter or like an email or something that I can just continue to pour over. But there, I I hadn't thought of a voice memo. That would be like so nice to hear him.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

But like here's the thing about voice memos it's texting for people who want to talk on the phone, but like want the luxury of responding whenever we want to. Like, we love texting because it means we don't have to respond immediately. That is what voice memos are. So, like, I would respond to Jesus, obviously, immediately, but I stick with my answer. I would want a voice memo.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

I think that's great. It's like a long phone conversation, but like the conversation takes place over days and days.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Millennia.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

I love it. Whoa, that's a great answer. I hope that was fun for you. I hope that met up to your expectations. Um we are going to jump in to God's promises. And like I said, we're talking about prayer today. So God's promise today comes from the book of James. And in the book of James, we are getting some instructions from the prophet, basically telling, you know, a group of Christians, hey, you've got to be better to one another because you're calling yourself a Christian. And the best way to do that is to start by prayer so that the Lord can give you what you need in order to make these changes in your life. And we hear in James 4:8, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Maybe even with a voice memo, if you're lucky.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Praise. Amen. And I love the book of James Letter of James. It's just really, really good. It's one of those like kind of books that not a lot of people have read, but it is a good book in the Bible. So I recommend. Let's dig into this episode's main question, which is what are some practical ways to deepen prayer when life feels too busy?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yes, and quick disclaimer like we do in every episode, y'all. We encourage you to take our words, hold them up against the church teachings and the sacred scripture. Especially if something doesn't sit well with you, refer elsewhere, and that's fine. Um, let the Holy Spirit prompt you for where you need to dig deeper in a certain topic. Um, and you know, forgive us if we commit an error. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Yes, yes. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's dig into today's topic. Some practical advice on prayer. Now, I don't think you know the question is when life gets busy or if life gets busy. Life is just busy all the time. Like unless I think even if you lived as a hermit, you would find something to make you busy. We just thrive on being busy. We kind of wear it as a medal of honor. Um, when someone says, like, hey, how are you doing? Oh, good, I'm busy, but I'm good. It's like that's just the mentality that we have. Um, if you're not busy, you're lazy. If you're not overwhelmed, you're not working hard enough. But that is not what God calls us to. He calls us to peace and he calls us to himself. So that's what we're going to talk about today, embracing that call to prayer. Um, I like to imagine prayer as like when I, you know, I'm a currently stay-at-home mom, small business owner that works out of her house. So I'm always home, you know, with my kids. I pick them up for school, get them off the bus. But when my husband comes home from work, he, you know, opens the door and he's got his arms wide open. And usually one of the kids run to him. Hopefully, all three do. Oh cute. It's usually only one because everybody's just playing. They do love their dad, but he's got his arms wide open. And as soon as they get into the vicinity of him where he's close enough to grab onto them, those arms wrap around whichever kid or kids it is, because that is the father's invitation to relationship, right? Like he's not forcing a hug on them, he's not going up to them and wrapping them up, which he totally does. But in that moment, he's inviting them to embrace him. And as soon as, you know, we give an inch into that relationship, God just scoops us up in his love. And that is what prayer is in my mind. That's how I view prayer. It's just taking time to step away from everything that's going on in my brain to refocus it to God, right? Because relationships don't thrive on occasional check-ins, they grow in when both people are invested. Um, I used to always ask my students when we talk about prayer, how many of you have like a snap streak with your friend or you and your best friend, how often do you guys talk? And they're like, Well, I mean, like we see each other at school all day, and then we like text all night or snap all night or whatever. I was like, okay, well, what if you like only checked in once a month or once a week, or like for an hour once a week, and like they started to kind of realize where I was going with? I was like, okay, we get it. Like, you can't just pray when you just go to church or you know, just give one hour to God. Like, right, that's we we shouldn't limit our time and prayer to just being physically in a church or in times of emergency. So, how can we make that more practical in our lives? Um, before I get into the tips, I cannot neglect sharing with you all what the catechism of the Catholic Church says about prayer because the catechisms, you know, parts that it has about prayer are just so beautiful and profound, and that you can dig into them for hours. So catechism chapter, I'm sorry, it's not chapters. Catechism 2559-2559 says, prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God. It isn't just words, it's directing our thoughts and our hearts toward God. So the things that are on our mind, we can stress about them or we can overthink them, or just even if it's a happy thought, but it's lifting that from ourselves and bringing it to God, allowing him to be a part of it. Catechism 2565, it tells us in the new covenant, the one that Jesus established on earth, right? In the new covenant, prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father, who is good beyond measure, with his son Jesus Christ, and with the Holy Spirit. That means prayer is a living relationship. Um, our relationship with the Lord doesn't turn on and off when we are praying. Like we check in with God, okay, now we put you on pause so I can go do this. Or I'm saying uh, you know, Rosary, okay, pause. Now I'm done talking to God. He goes with us wherever we go. It's a living relationship. So sometimes prayer can just be as simple as keeping God in your heart, keeping God in your mind, bringing him with you in a sense. Um, but here's some key parts that we have to remember about the relationship that God seeks with us. He doesn't force that relationship, right? We talked about the father and his hug. He gives us free will, he invites us and waits for our response. God's always present, but intimacy only grows when we show up to that relationship. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

I love that idea because how often do you, I mean, has it happened in your life, Raleigh, where you're just thinking, like, where is God in this situation? And where is God in that situation? I know that I've heard that from young people in ministry so many times to be like, where was God when this bad thing happened or whatever? And it's like, He is right next to you. And you know, like if you don't have an attentive, prayerful um disposition, it might be hard to believe that that's true, but it is true. And and the two pieces of um the catechism that you read, I think encapsulated that of like it's just about being present and like remembering his presence because he is faithful and he is constant and he is living and all of those things, and all of your tips have have reminded us of that. Like he is here for you as needed. Always.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

I love it and forever. Amen. Amen. Yeah. So now that I've given my spiel on why prayer is important, like, you know, I think the person who asked this isn't questioning why prayer is important. I think they know prayer is important. Um, but how do we do it practically? So, how do we move prayer right from something occasional to something active and life-giving? So I've got some tips, seven tips, seven are covenantal number, girl, seven practical ways to start. Let's go. Number one, go build prayer into your routine. So there's some things that you do every day around the same time, right? You brush your teeth in the morning, you make yourself breakfast, or you make your kids breakfast, maybe you drop them off at school or you send them to school. Throughout our day, we have a pretty standard routine, even you know, weekday and weekend. Um, there's this quote from Matthew Kelly that I really love. And it says, if you're too busy to do, actually, I don't know if this is Matthew Kelly. I'm gonna look it up and put it in the show notes. But it says, if you're too busy to pray and to commune with God, then you're busier than God has ever planned for you to be. And how true is that? Because we have time to pray. We kind of waste it by like scrolling on our phones or filling it with things that aren't, you know, building us up. But we can build prayer into our schedule, but consistency matters way more than the length of our prayer. Like we think we have to do a holy hour each day. That is amazing, that is wonderful, that is something to work towards. But five minutes every day, I would say, is better than one hour a week, right? Five minutes every day while you're brushing your teeth and then washing your face and you know, doing your morning routine. That making that consistent every single day, that forms a habit and eventually that becomes your mindset.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yes, can I fact check you? Yes, please do you got it? Because you're right. Um, I Matthew Kelly talked about it, but he is paraphrasing Mother Teresa. Of course he is. If you are too busy to pray, you are too busy.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

You are too busy.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

And I think you mentioned that already um at the beginning, where you're just saying, Yes, we do. We prioritize the activity of our lives rather than like the value of our lives, maybe, because or maybe we place the value of our lives in our busyness. Um, because obviously we live in a culture where that is um given value, where you know, if you are busy and you are important and you know, like how busy you are has some uh status um piece to it. Like I'm I'm important, I'm busy, I have a lot of emails, I have a lot of activities, I have a lot of friends, whatever that looks like. So I'm very busy. Um, and if you are too busy, if you are too important to the world to pray, then it's time to retreat from the world a little bit. And we talked about that in C in episode one where we talk about balance, right? You have to figure out, yeah, you gotta work out maybe, and you gotta eat right, and you gotta take care of your kids, and you gotta answer the emails and go to the meetings, but you gotta pray. And that should be um, like you were just saying, something that happens consistently throughout your day. That's not a calendar block. It can be, it should be, but it doesn't have to be. It can be something that happens consistently throughout your day that like you're like, Jesus, come to this meeting with me and like help me bite my tongue, or Jesus, come to the closet with me because I don't know what to wear and I don't like anything that I have right now. You know, like whatever that looks like, just invite him with you.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yeah, take him with you. Absolutely. So that's tip number one. Number two, fill your home with reminders of God, fill your home with things that draw your mind towards our sacred Lord, the religious art, crucifixes, icon, these can help turn your heart towards prayer naturally throughout the day. And if you're raising littles, it's a really good way to normalize and organically introduce them to different saints, um, you know, different, you know, theological truths like angels and and things like that. So we have found putting different things in our home really it not just normalize our faith to our children, but it shows them like, yes, it's a priority. Our home is decorated with beautiful art and flowers and pictures of our kids.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Oh, Rolly, you have that one picture with Mary holding Jesus as a baby and then holding Jesus after he's taken down from the cross. So remember it. You've had it in all of your, yes, you've had it in all of your house, your homes since I've been hanging out with you. And um, it's things like that. Like I, as a visitor to your home, admired that image and remember it, you know, um, because it made an impact on me. So um it might help you as a person who lives there to remember to pray, but it might even edify or evangelize to the other people in your home. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

You know what? I think I'll take a picture of that and post that to our Instagram to share with you guys because it is, I only take it out during Lent now because like that is the time when it's hard to look at now as a mom.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

It is.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Um, and I find that someone told me this one time the entrance to your home, especially like what is immediately in view of after you open your front door, place something there that reminds those who enter into your home. You know, this is a house of not just a house of God, it's a house of prayer. This is, you know, who we are. So I have a crucifix of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit all on this one crucifix that my friend gave to me as a wedding present because it's kind of just like a reminder to just not myself, but like those who enter our home, like, okay, this is who we are.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah. And you can even set up, right? You can even set up a prayer corner that is visible, right? Maybe you want your prayer corner to be um tucked away, like in your bedroom or somewhere uh private. Um, but it could also be an option that like you've got a collection of images or a candle and your favorite chair or something like all in one spot. And it's just like, that's where I, that's where I read my Bible, that's where I pray, that's my spot. Because it might prompt you to like make that a calendar block or make that five minutes in the morning or whatever that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, a lot of people have recommended um having like a little family altar in your house where family members will put something that's special to them that um you know the Lord has really helped them with and and grown in. So that's also something to do, especially if you're raising littles, just to make their faith a little bit more hands-on for them. So I love that. Religious art, crucifixes, icons. That's that's tip number two. Tip number three, use your technology for good. I, oh man, I am so bad about being stuck on my phone. I am a doom scroller. Sometimes from the moment I wake up, and it's just, I'm so, so frustrated with when I realize what I've been doing. You know, I've just been glued to this technology when there's so many other things out there that demand my attention. So using it for good, prayer apps, Bible apps, reminders, worship music, your phone doesn't have to be a distraction. It can be a tool. There are so we live in such a technological world where there's so many apps and the Bible and the scripture are so accessible to us, and there's so many podcasts and things like that that break down the faith and you know, the vernacular of the people, the you know, of the modern age, that there's really no excuse for not, you know, having um technology as part of your prayer life, if that is something that you are interested in, right? Your phone doesn't have to be a distraction, it can be a way to grow closer to Christ.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Absolutely. And one thing that I did years ago was organize my home screen on my phone to where my prayer apps were all bundled and on the first page, you know. So like just to say that like when I open my phone, I already have my my messages, my phone call, my email, whatever it's like the things that I'm gonna press 500 times a day. But all the prayer apps are in one location in the top left corner because that is where your eye is gonna look first, right? You read from left to right, from the top to the bottom. Um, so I did that years ago, and that's just been a little life hack for me. Um, and it I would be remiss to say that I I use the Hallow app in particular, and I do break for Hallow. So I have a lot of um content time spent in there. But even before I worked for them, I had my routines set in the app and I would get reminders at 6 a.m., at 8 a.m. at noon to say the various prayers that were important to me throughout the day for um what I needed it to be for my life. And so that's a really easy hack as well, is to set reminders. Even if you're not using the Hallow app, you can set reminders on your phone with the reminders app or with the timers or whatever it looks like to say this thing is gonna help me. It's not gonna deter me.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Tip number four, read the Bible, keep it simple. Um, I know that sometimes the Bible can be very overwhelming or intimidating, especially to those that did not grow up reading it or did not go to um school as a child that had any type of theology or religious program, but you don't need to overdo it. You don't need to read a whole chapter a day, you can read a verse a day or a psalm a day. Um, just let God speak through his words. You don't need to buy the same Bible that your parents had growing up. You can find one that is a little bit more um maybe modern with some commentary in it. The new American Bible revised edition is always the one that I recommend to be. But there are so many Bibles out there that have such good, clear commentary that it's very, very easy to incorporate reading scripture into your prayer and then also reading or listening to what it says at the surface and then possibly what it's metaphorically saying to your heart. So reading the Bible that has to be part of your prayer, like reading the word for that.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

So I um of course encourage you to read the Bible. And I started reading the Bible when I was a teenager and I was a little bit lost while I was doing it, but I just remember like reading and highlighting and being like, this seems nice or this looks important, or I have questions about this. Um, and then over time, through education and through community, I've come to understand a lot more about scripture, which is such a gift. But in the meantime, if you are like just cracking open the Bible, or even if you're just like you've been doing it, but you don't feel like it's going well, one way that you can start is either by getting one of those like Bible study workbook kit things. They're all over the internet. You can pick whatever you want. Like you want to study the book of Esther, there is a workbook online for Catholics reading the book of Esther who need to make it make sense. And you can buy that and read along with it, make that a part of your calendar block to say, I'm gonna read the text and then I'm gonna refer to whatever this little workbook is helping me to do. That's like the very basic. The next level up from that, if you're maybe a little bit more like, I don't want to follow a program, I want to like do it on my own. Um, you can use AI or Google or whatever you like. Pick some scripture that you're spending time in. If you're just like, hey, I'm going in the book of James because Raleigh said, I'm going in the book of James, and you can ask chat, what is the context for the letter of James in the Bible? And you'll get some stuff. And then you can say, Show me James 4.8 and give me context for this particular scripture. One friend of mine does this really cool thing where he will say to chat, put that in the original Greek and then give me some like etymology and like context for how the Greek versus the English translation helps me to read it differently. And he said it goes places. So if you're reading something like the word spirit or the word brother or something in a text, in the original Greek, there might be some more context there, right? Like brother might not be your literal like blood brother, whatever it looks like, right? So he takes that and spends a few minutes in chat with whatever scripture he's praying with, and then he just prays with that new information. He's like, Lord, what can you reveal to me from this? And sometimes it's like really fruitful, and sometimes it's just like I feel smarter in my prayer time. So just a couple hacks, try it out. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

That's next level. Yeah. And I think that segues right into tip number five: join a prayer community. Um, or just you know, don't do it alone, right? Faith grows in community. Maybe it's a small group or a Bible study group or a prayer circle. You don't need to do this all alone. Obviously, our, you know, intimate relationship with God is our relationship with God, but we are meant to grow in community. We are meant to be a church. Um, I found the most fruits in my relationship with God grow from experiences working with a group of women um planning retreats or just meeting, you know, once a month or you know, every two weeks or so for a Bible study, just having a group of people that I can count on to not just pray for me, but are interested in learning more about the Lord, that has been very fruitful. And if you don't know any communities like that, if you're not sure about, you know, how to join one, or if you're intimidated to, you know, join one, you can always just start your own. Like find that one friend that you think would want to do that with you, and then it will grow from there. But don't be intimidated to ask someone to pray with you because it's something that literally everyone can do. Right. I think a lot of the time there's like a niche market for like sales and things like that. Like a certain brand of you know, lipstick is really only going to be interesting to like little girls if it's like highlighter pink, you know, my girls will love that. I'm not gonna buy that for myself. Prayer is something that everybody can grab onto, right? At that level needs, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Because you might be praying differently than your friend is praying, but however you're praying is still fine. You know, um, if prayer, as we heard from the catechism, is a lifting of our minds and hearts to God, it doesn't even have to be verbal. You can just you can just like hold hands and pray, or just like whatever that looks like, you can just approach it wherever you're at, but you're doing it together. So you'll have that solidarity and you'll feel supported. And if you also don't know how to join a prayer community, it might be worth it to consider going on a retreat. Because what happens often on a retreat is you will meet people who had the same idea as you who are like, I also wanted a weekend away, or I also wanted a night away to refresh my religious fervor or my prayerfulness or whatever it is. And then you meet like-minded people and y'all can set up a group coming out of that and say, We're we're gonna meet once a week, or we'll start a Facebook thread and we'll keep up with each other and support each other.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah. And just a plug for retreats, I want to encourage anyone who's listening that if your current, you know, church isn't offering retreats for your age group or your, you know, you know, demographic if you're a young teen or an adult, you know, a young mom, whatever, you don't have to only go to retreats or events that are put on by your church. You can look out at different churches that are in your diocese or archdiocese or even out of state, you know. Reach out because it's the universal Catholic Church. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Amen. And there's so many good retreats. You could really find anything that you're looking for. There's even online retreats, and you can still interact with the people on the online retreats.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

So we've done a couple of those. Number six, offer your work to God. So this is the second to last. I have one more tip after this. Um, before starting any task, simply just say, Lord, I offer this effort to you, or Lord, I offer folding these clothes to you. Maybe I don't listen to an audiobook while I fold these clothes because I'm going to spend this time just praying or just spending time in that silence. Let that mundane activity, those ordinary moments, transform into something of prayer, especially those things that you don't enjoy doing, right? I don't love folding clothes. Me neither. I don't love it. It's I'm just like, I don't want to pay someone to do it. I don't love folding clothes, and that is usually the thing I offer up the most. Lord, I'm offering up these clothes that I need to fold to so and so's intention. And he's like, wow, someone's climbing, you know, Mount Crucific and Magigoria barefoot, but you fold those clothes, girl.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Get it out of you. Mine, it's even beyond that. Like, it's a thing I don't want to do, so I'm gonna offer it up, but it also will transform me in the meantime, you know. So if like I am feeling um cranky about having chores to do and having to like do all the things the kids are bugging me for, and then if I say, Lord, I'm gonna scrub these dishes that have food stuck on them from being left not rinsed in the sink, and I'm gonna stand here and think about you while I do it. I've literally said that prayer. And then while it's happening, I start to be so thankful for the chore because I'm going, okay, I have these dishes because I have these children and I have a home that has a sink with running water in it, and we have dishes to eat off of that are cute. And yes, there is ketchup stuck to it currently, but in 20 seconds it won't be. And what a gift that I have this thing to deal with because so many gifts don't. And I I literally, this is hilarious. This might be like the tagline of the episode, but I have come out of doing dishes from a bad mood thinking, thank the Lord for all these spoons. These spoons are just the best. And you know, it changes in the meantime. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I love that. Yeah, it's a it's like you changing your mindset. And I'm you have such a poetic soul that I'm sure you are like washing ditches and thinking, like, oh, he washes as white as snow. He is just like I can just see you turning this into some type of sonnet.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Unless I get interrupted by a child, and then it's like, what do you need?

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Those little minions. We love them. We do love them. And that brings me to our final tip, number seven, embrace silence. Embrace moments of silence. As a parent, that does not happen very often. There's been like times when my husband and I have gone on a date and he's like, Can we just turn off the radio and like not talk for like 10 minutes? I'm like, that sounds amazing because we never get silence. And sometimes you might be the opposite. Maybe silence feels uncomfortable, but it creates space for God to speak, and it also creates time for you to regulate yourself and re-orient, reorient. Yeah, that works for me too. Um, our mindset and our vision back to Christ, right? It isn't just about talking, it's also about listening and being present to the voice of God.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Right. And I think too that that is gonna do more for you than just invite prayer. I will say in my own experience of practicing silence, it is a struggle for me to just sit quietly. I try to do it often. I really do. I understand that it's important, but when I get into that silence, what happens first is the to-do list and the conversation I had yesterday that I still feel awkward about, and the email I didn't respond to yet, and like all of that. So you kind of have to like sit with the discomfort first and like maybe maybe respond to that email in your head if it's keeping you from you know entering into a prayer. Um, but they uh they always say that when it comes to silence, if you are able to sit quietly with yourself, that's gonna say a lot about your mental state as well as your spiritual state, right? So I think it's gonna be healthy for you in a ton of ways. Blaise Pascal said that all of humanity's problems stem from a man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone, which is the beginning of saying, like, the only reason that we have conflict is because there's discomfort within our own hearts and we like take it out on others, we compare ourselves to others and all the things. But if we can find peace and prayerfulness within ourselves, then we can enter the world ready to serve and not ready to compete or or you know, scour whatever is available to us. Otherwise, we already will find that we have what we need in our hearts in communion with the Lord. And then the rest of the world is just like you can re-enter it with a different space. Um, but it is hard. I won't say that I'm able to do that often. That is the goal. That's not always the reality, but I I do have that in my mind of like if I can sit quietly in a room by myself for five minutes, then I'm doing okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yeah, that's the goal. And we'll we'll add that quote from Blaze Pasca on the show notes because that's really, really good. Um, before we leave you guys with our you know, reflection question, all this good stuff. I have to share my favorite way to pray. This is how I always pray, especially when I, you know, pray in front of large groups or I'm leading prayer with a group of people. Um, if your prayer feels overwhelming, just remember to P-R-A-Y. Pray. The P stands for praise. Thank God for who he is. Thank God for you know, keep in mind those blessings that you have in your life, even if they don't feel like blessings, um, are to reconcile, bring about the things in your mind that you need to bring to reconciliation, bring to the sacrament of reconciliation, but also just those times where you've fallen short that day and you recognize that you need God's grace. And then after you've done those things, then ask and bring your needs and your desires to the Lord in prayer, bring those intentions and then finish it off with why, which is yield, spending some time in silence, but also making an active effort to surrender to the will of God. Lord, I've brought all these things to you, but thy will, not my will, be done. And prayer, it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be an hour long, it doesn't have to be something that's so beautifully written down that people pray it for generations after your death, right? It just has to be honest. It just has to be from where you are at that moment. The Lord desires to hear from his people.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Absolutely. And I think just to give even a one up from that, because I always love when you talk about that, Raleigh. One thing that I heard from another um prayer leader was if you're doing something like this where you're kind of going through things you're thankful for, things you're asking for, things you need to reconcile about, it doesn't hurt to make that a part of your prayer time to sort of list that, whether it's like in your journal or just in your mind, um, to say, like, I'm gonna intentionally come up with five things that I maybe did wrong that I need to reconcile about. And then I'm gonna equally come up with five things that I know to be true about the goodness of God. And like you're just matching because what you could maybe do in a prayer like this is over-emphasize one or the other. Um, but if you're saying, like, I'm gonna put a number on it, I'm gonna say the guy that I was listening to said that he does seven. He's like, I do seven ways that God is awesome and adorable. And he he lists like you are almighty, you are all powerful, you are all faithful, like whatever that is. He goes through seven things. And then he'll say, like, seven things I've done wrong since the last time I did this. And he's like, I lied, or whatever. And then he was like, seven things I'm gonna ask for because you might have a really present ask, but maybe there's like that intention that you kind of forgot about from last week, or there's something that you you saw on the news and it's upsetting you, and you just want to put it somewhere, and then you'll come up with seven things, and then the yield can be however many, I'm just adding this, can be however many minutes you've given yourself lists, right? So if like you said I'm gonna do five things for each of them, I'm gonna yield for five minutes. If you don't have five minutes, friends, we get it. Like Raleigh and I understand, but it could be we do if it's just that one, if if you're doing a holy hour, or if you find yourself with 20 minutes waiting for your next meeting to start, or whatever that looks like, and you decide that you have five minutes, like can you scratch out a praise, a reconciliation, and ask in one minute and make it that and like that's super practical, and it can happen. Yeah, it can happen every day.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

It's not about the length of your prayer, it's about the consistency, it's about the honesty.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yeah, for sure. All right, so what are our reflection questions for the friends?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Um, I think after listening to this, it's important to think about how prayer is prioritized in your life. What role does prayer take in your routine? Is it something that, oh, if I have time, I'll do it, or is it something that is actually built into your prayer? Like food, you know what time you're gonna eat each day. That is prioritized in your prayer. That's not something you say, if I get to it, I'll do it. Prayer is our food for our soul, our relationship with the Lord. So, how are we prioritizing with our prayer in our lives? I think that's something good to reflect on.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Absolutely. Um, so we're gonna wrap up today's episode. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram and YouTube, friends. If you have found these conversations helpful, entertaining. Um, if you loved this episode and you want to share it, or if you have ideas for future episodes, you can email us at thegloryandegrind pod at gmail.com or DM us on Instagram at thegloryandegrind. We'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yeah, we hope you guys enjoyed today's episode, that the Spirit guided your reflection and that you feel a little bit more relaxed and closer to our Lord. Our next episode will be the final episode of season one. We'll be wrapping things up. Call back to the first episode. We'll be wrapping up things and laughing through the mistakes and memories that we've made, learning how to do this whole podcast thing. So we'll see you guys in the next episode. Through the grind and the grace, we are praying for you. Please pray for us too. See ya. Peace.