The Christian prayer life can sometimes feel stale. It doesn’t mean your faith is weak, or that you’re doing something wrong—so don’t get hung up on it! It just happens. But if you want to connect with God and don’t know how to pray, or simply don’t feel like praying…then these everyday prayers are for you.
Can I Be More Patient?
As much as we love our friends, family, classmates, or coworkers, they can get on our nerves. Your mom makes a comment about finding a “real” job, again. Your roommate lets the trash overflow, again. And your friend can still never decide where they wanna go for dinner. It’s usually a culmination of the little things that lead us to get impatient when we normally wouldn’t.
Don’t get us wrong, patience isn’t easy. Yet, Jesus understands what it’s like to have his patience tested more than any of us. Mark 8 is a great example. Jesus expresses his desire to feed a group of four thousand people, and his disciples immediately question how he’ll do it, even though he’d just performed the same exact miracle in the feeding of the five thousand.
It should have been clear what Jesus was planning to do, but he still didn’t get impatient over their lack of understanding; he just showed them again. And later, when the topic came up in private, he talked to them about where his frustration was coming from (Mark 8:17-21).
How often do we doubt God even though he’s proven himself to us over and over? And, if anyone has a good excuse to lose their cool… it’s definitely him, haha. Yet, as we see from Jesus, patience is a choice. And, God abounds in it.
As we learn to be more like Jesus, we can practice not reacting out of impatience but cooling down. If we still have an issue, talk about it with the person. Conversation about our frustrations is healthy, but treating others poorly because of our impatience isn’t.
Just a word of caution though: praying for patience will probably give you more opportunities to practice it 😬.
“‘If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.’ His disciples answered, ‘But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?’” (Mark 8:3-4).
A Prayer for Patience
Patient Father, there are many things I do that would justify an impatient response. Thank you for choosing to show me grace. Help me notice when I have the opportunity to do the same to others. Remind me of your love for the person I’m interacting with and how my words reflect you. Give me the wisdom to have conversations with others about my frustrations, and help me grow in my ability to be patient, knowing I would want the same in return. Amen.
Prayers for everyday life are hard to come up with on the spot! If you’re in need of more simple prayers visit this page to help you connect with God in the ordinary, extraordinary, everyday moments of life!
