How To Remember To Pray

In the busyness of life, especially if you are at a point in your life where you have several responsibilities such as being a parent, a busy office worker, or a student loaded with many subjects, you sometimes end up without the time to pray. In fact, sometimes praying doesn’t even come to your mind. The good thing is that the Bible offers us the truth that is both convicting and comforting in this regard since all Christians encounter this at times in their spiritual walk.

Heavenly Father, help us to never forget or take our prayer life for granted. Instead, we shall take measures to ensure that we honor our prayer time and always fight for it along with You. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

What Makes Us Pray?

We all sometimes forget to pray. Therefore, we want to know how to remember to pray and how to have a consistent prayer life. But before we get into the “how,” we must first get into the “what.” What makes us pray excitedly and even spend a long time praying? Once we get to the “what” and even the “why,” the “how” of remembering to pray will be easy.

And so, what makes us Christians pray? The answer is simple. It is God and our relationship with Him. First, we have to understand that God commanded us to pray. In Matthew 6:5, where Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, Jesus said “when” you pray, not “if” you pray. It is not an option but a command that God expects us to follow. Also, the way prayer is mentioned in the Bible, where we are asked to pray for certain things, is communicated as a command. In 1 Peter 5:6-7, it is written that we are to humble ourselves and cast our cares to God because He cares for us. Philippians 4:6-7 also states that we are to present our prayer requests to God.

Another reason for praying is that Christ Himself prayed to God. As Christians, we desire and should pursue to be Christlike by the power of the Holy Spirit in us. Christ exemplified the life that we should have lived. Just as He sacrificially loved us and asked us to do the same for others, He also exemplified a life of prayer and dependence on the Father, so we should do the same. We can find one of these examples in ( And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. Mark 1:35).

However, it is one thing to pray out of pure obligation. Praying out of delight, obedience, and love of God is even better. 

A person may consistently pray and yet do it with the wrong heart. Ultimately, Christ is the bedrock on which we may pray to God. We were all sinners who were separated from God. We were enemies of God and recipients of His wrath because of our sins. We might forget to pray because our sin causes our prayers not to reach God. And even if our prayers reach God, all that we deserve is death, for the wages of sin is death, as written in ( For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.Romans 6:23).

But in Ephesians 2:1-9, it is written that God, being rich in mercy, made us alive after being dead in our trespasses. By His grace, we have been saved. He has shown us the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. While we were still sinners, Christ died for our sins, as written in (But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8). As we learn in Ephesians 2:14-16, it is the finished work of Christ on the cross that broke down the wall of hostility between God and us and paid the penalty of our sins so that in Him we might be reconciled to the Father.

Being able to pray to God is a privilege. If indeed we understood how anyone could not just pray to the Father because of their sin, we would appreciate and be grateful for what Christ has done for us. We would never take for granted the privilege of coming before the Father’s throne of grace and asking Him for grace and mercy in times of need. Christ took on the penalty of our sins, died the death we should have died, lived the life we should have lived, and rose from the dead. So, in Him we may find eternal life and forgiveness and have a restored relationship with God, which happens purely out of the Father’s mercy and grace and compels us to pray and be zealous in doing it. We don’t have to drag ourselves into praying when we delight in it. That is why, if we love God, His commandments are not burdensome for us, as written in 1 John 5:2-4. The love of God causes us to love Him, so praying becomes a delight.

Last, what should make us pray to God and remember to do it is that we are nothing without God. God is not dependent on anyone or anything; we are all dependent on God. In (For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Romans 11:36), it is written that all things come from Him and through Him. Our dependency on God allows us to know more about Him. And if we learn more about God and His attributes, we will desire and be excited to pray to Him out of love. Just as a husband becomes more in love with his wife as he gets to know her more, the same goes for us as we learn about who God is—as we participate, it draws our affection for Him, and prayer becomes something we are eager to do.

If we truly know that God is all-powerful, we will understand that if God has the power to create a vast universe, surely He can give us the strength for our life’s difficulties. In Psalm 147:5, it is written that our LORD is great and His power is abundant. He is the everlasting God Whose power does not deplete and never grows tired (Isaiah 40:28).

Because we know that God is aware of every detail about us, and there is nothing for Him to discover since He is all-knowing, we are comforted that when we pray, we don’t have to inform Him or make Him understand (Psalm 139). Last, knowing that God is sovereign should not discourage us from praying, but it should encourage us all the more to pray for what is according to His will and know that He will accomplish what He wants to accomplish (In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: Ephesians 1:11).

In other words, what makes us pray to God is our restored relationship with Him, knowing Who God is and what He is like through the kindness and grace He displayed through Christ. This knowledge compels us to pray to Him. We no longer have to remember to pray because we are eager to pray.

Father in heaven, what a privilege it is to be able to call You my heavenly Father despite my being a sinner. It is only because of Christ, Who broke down the wall that divided You and me and reconciled us, that I can be in a relationship with You and be adopted as Your Child. Open my eyes and give me more understanding of Who You are. May that understanding all the more move me to pray to You constantly, knowing the God to Whom I pray. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

How Can We Remember to Pray?

As mentioned above, the Gospel – and the mercy and grace that God showed us in the person of Christ, for knowing Who God is and what He is like – moves us to pray. With that, we can never forget to pray by constantly saturating ourselves with the Gospel and what Christ has done for us. Just because we are Christians does not mean we have graduated from the Gospel. It is something that we should remind ourselves of daily. The gratitude, awe, humility, and love toward God that arises from remembering the mercy and grace He has shown us in Christ causes us to always pray to Him, just as it causes us to repent of our sins continually.

We can also never forget to pray if we’re constantly doing things that would allow us to learn more about God and what He is like. We do that primarily through the Scripture, which is God-breathed, as written in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. God has revealed Who He is through the Scriptures; therefore, we can know more about Him. You can also read good theological books from credible authors that are faithful to the Scriptures; this will help you understand Who God is and what He is like. For resources, you can use the good teachers of the faith with whom God has blessed us. 

There are also practical ways to ensure that you remember to pray. You could set an alarm on your phone for the specific prayer times in your daily schedule that you’ve allocated to make sure that you won’t forget about them. You can also use sticky notes and other methods to remind you of your prayer time.

Heavenly Father, give me the diligence to preach the Gospel to myself daily. I won’t ever be overfamiliar with it but always grateful and in awe of the grace and mercy that You have shown me in the person of Christ. This compels me to appreciate the privilege of prayer and never forget to pray to You. Give me spiritual wisdom and understanding of Who You are and what You are like so that my knowledge will cause me to be even more eager to pray to You. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

When we always remember the Gospel – where we encounter God’s greatest mercy and grace in our lives and find out more about His beauty, awesomeness, splendor, majesty, and Who He is – prayer becomes something we enjoy and, therefore, never forget to do. Everyone is separated from God because of sin, but those who are in Christ are brought near to Him again. What a privilege it is to be able to be in a relationship with God and pray to Him.