The Most Effective Prayer You Can Do To Get What You Need

Prayer can be a source of comfort, guidance, and reflection; it provides a profound spiritual connection between human beings and a higher power. However, we humans spend too much time and effort trying to control the outcomes of our prayers: we ask for a certain amount of money, a specific person to love us, or a particular event to happen, thinking that when that prayer gets heard, life will finally work. But we really want not the money, the person, or the event. What we want is to feel good, to experience relief, to believe that we are loved. We want success to avoid feeling like a failure; we ask for a lover to feel that we deserve to be loved; we want some events to happen in a certain way to regain a sense of control over our lives. And yet, in most cases, we still feel uneasy even when we acquire the things, experience the events, or meet the person. We fear the money will run out, the lover will leave, and events turn out to not be as great as we thought they would.

How can we use prayer to break out of that vicious circle of chasing things only to feel dissatisfied? I suggest three steps to transform your prayers from random requests to deep connections to the Divine.

1. Express Gratitude. Look around you and find every little thing that you can be grateful for. We spend significant parts of our days complaining, looking at everything we don’t like, and getting upset because things don’t change. Worse, we reinforce the idea that the world is falling apart by spending too much time talking to other complainers, in person or online. Why do we do that? There are two big reasons. One is that finding others who share our complaints creates a sense of connection and makes us feel that there is community around us. We confuse agreement with connection, but connecting two angry minds cannot result in either finding a positive outcome. And two, we want to be right at all costs. It is perhaps the biggest flaw of the human mind: we desperately want to win every argument, and many times, we prefer to be right over being happy.

What if, just for today, you take a step back and observe everything that is working out for you? We can be grateful for the sunny day, the driver who was kind enough to let us pass first, and the cashier who said hello with a genuine smile. The more things we find to be grateful for, the more we communicate to the Divine what pleases us and makes us feel good. And the good things then multiply.

2. Consider the possibility that there is a Power bigger than you and an Intelligence more extraordinary than your mind. One of my favorite quotes is attributed to the inventor Henry Ford. He said, “If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said they needed faster horses.” Instead, he let creativity flow through him and gave the world the automobile. Our minds are limited, and the paths and solutions that better suit us are often beyond what we can see. Trust in the Higher Power and rejoice in connecting with the divinity and allowing it to flow through you so you can get answers much better than the ones your stressed brain can try to work out in a pinch.

3. Instead of praying for specific things, try asking for synchronicities. Synchronicity means being at the right place at the right time, encountering the right people, and getting unexpected help at the best possible moment. Years ago, my mother had a heart attack while driving. She lost consciousness behind the wheel yet woke up in the hospital without a scratch. In an actual miracle moment, no accident happened, and no one got hurt. All we know is that somehow, the car stopped; a man on a motorcycle saw her faint and, without hesitation, left his bike, moved her aside, and drove her car to the hospital. To this day, we don’t know who this angel was, and we are eternally grateful for his heroic actions. That day was proof that the human mind can’t see all that is possible and that there is a bigger connection between us and the Divine than we understand. You had lived through moments of synchronicity before: from when you thought of someone, and they called on the phone to when you were in a pickle and a God-send person or event helped you. The beauty of asking for synchronicities is that you don't need to plan or to know everything in advance. Just ask for connection and let the Divine bring the best solutions to you. All of those moments of synchronicity can make your life infinitely better or even save it. Similarly to gratitude, the more you acknowledge the synchronicities and give thanks for them, the more they will appear, and things will get better and easier for you.

Prayer can be a meditative practice, a plea for assistance, or a path toward enlightenment. It fosters a deep spiritual connection, generates emotional relief, and promotes personal growth. Don’t miss the opportunity to connect with the Divine in any form you believe exists. Your life will become not only much better but also it will feel infinitely easier. Let the Divine give you a hand.