I went on a short term missions trip to Africa with six other people from my church in April of 2004. During our stay I was assigned to room with John, a fairly new Christian in his late twenties. Each morning my alarm would go off to wake me up before the start of our busy days in order for me to have time to pray. Fortunately my alarm never perturbed John who either fell back asleep or never heard it at all. However, by the end of our trip he came to realize that prayer was a priority in my life and asked me a simple, yet daunting question; “How much time should I spend in prayer each day?” I was unprepared and surprised by the question and my best response at the time was, “It depends”, but I never gave him a more thorough or biblical answer. After some thought, prayer and study, I think the best answer to this question comes from Jesus’ teaching on prayer and the model prayer known as “The Lord’s prayer” found in Matthew 6:5-15.
Christian Growth Network
