By: Toni Crawford

I love to pray. Prayer is like therapy for me. I can go to my prayer closet and be real with God with what concerns me, with the concerns I have for others and so on. I notice that throughout the years, my prayer time has increase. I use to pray for 10 mins and sometimes less and now I will leave my prayer closet and realize wow, a hour has passed.

Do you think that God is concerned about the length of our prayers? Do you think our prayers won’t be honored if we pray five minutes or maybe 10 minutes? I personally don’t think He does. I heard people of the faith (Christianity/Believers) make negative comments about people who don’t pray long but I never saw in the bible that God said everyone should pray 1 hour or whatever long. The bible says, “Pray without ceasing.” -1 Thessalonians 5:1 and the bible also says, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”-Matthew 6:7. There’s many scriptures on how to pray but I don’t see and scriptures commanding we pray a lengthy prayer.

I believe that we sometimes concern ourselves with things that God is not concerned with. Do we really think that God would say, since you prayed for 5 mins, I won’t honor you, when he hasn’t put a time on how long we should pray? And honestly, if the prayer is lengthy that doesn’t mean God honor that prayer. It’s not a matter of length when we pray, it’s a matter of if we’re praying with the right motives and intentions, if we’re praying in the spirit. 

In closing, we don’t need to focus on the length of prayer, we only need to pray. God honors sincere prayers.