I am finally starting to make the connection between prayer and happiness.  This is probably very obvious to most, but I seem to be a very slow learner when it comes to life lessons such as this.  Recently, I have forced myself to meet a consistent prayer schedule – whether I feel like it, or not. 

I have written before on my belief that love is an action, not a feeling.  If I truly love God – which is the greatest commandment – then I need to show it.  Obviously this means living a life of virtue, but it also means that I need to regularly seek God in prayer.

Sometimes I feel a tremendous connection with the Lord and I am eager to pray.  I want to share with Him, praise Him, and show Him gratitude.  More often though, I am busy doing the things that bring me worldly pleasure.  I have trouble settling my mind down enough to even consider prayer.  I develop a “what’s in it for me” attitude.  At times like these, I tend to abandon prayer.  When this happens, my life always takes a turn for the worse.  I abandon God and my life gets worse.  Imagine that.

To try and combat this nonsensical and destructive pattern, I have been forcing myself to wake each morning allowing plenty of time for prayer.  When I get home from work each day, I make prayer my first priority.  And before I go to bed each night, I make sure to speak with God.  Since I’m often tired or distracted, my mind tends to wander.  To compensate for this tendency, I have been praying the Divine Office, sometimes known as the Liturgy of the Hours.
So far, this has been working well for me.  I have heard it said that it takes 21 days to form a new habit.  I’ll let you know if I stick with this one.  It’s certainly a worthy cause!