When you don’t know how to pray to God with meaningful prayer and you want to feel the presence of God, you need to start somewhere. We hope we can help by providing this guide. There are many saints over the centuries that have written about the art of meaningful prayer, which is referred to as mental prayer. There are many resources on the I Am Jesus website that should guide you as you learn how to pray to God with meaningful prayer that opens your heart and mind.
Here you will find resources to help you get started with the basics of prayer, and hundreds of prayers and meditations to help your relationship with God grow.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve tried to pray in the past and you were unable to make a connection with God. And it doesn’t matter if you haven’t prayed for years or have never prayed at all.
You can have a relationship with God that is meaningful and that transforms your life. I promise you, that if you invest in discovering who God is, how he wants to be worshipped, and how to be present to him, you will fall deeply in love with him and discover that he is, always was, and will always be deeply in love with you.
This page will show you how to begin a good prayer life, and how to keep it going long term. We offer beginner tips and also tips for those who want to go deeper.
Tip #1: On How to Pray to God
Pray with Love
START WITH LOVE. Prayer is effective when you open your heart to God. If you can do this you will receive graces from God no matter what is going on in your life. You can pray well even if you’ve never prayed before or feel unworthy. You can pray effectively even if you have no idea how to communicate with God. If your heart is open and humble, the Lord will show you mercy, so an open heart is the most important step in how to pray to God.
How to Pray to God with Meaningful Prayer
How to Pray with Love for God
The best way to enter into meaningful prayer as a beginner is learn a method that opens your heart to God. If you have never learned the four main types of prayer, you may want to visit our page on ways to pray, which covers how to make prayers of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication, and why we do this.
In Summary:
- Adore God (use written prayers to guide you)
- Be sorry when you fail God and yourself (confession guide)
- Show gratitude to God (use written prayers to guide you)
- Know how to ask the Father for things (meditate on the Our Father)
Tip #2: On How to Pray to God
The Right Location
WHERE ARE YOU PRAYING? Prayer is most effective in sacred spaces dedicated for time with God. You can pray well even if you are unable to pray in a chapel or church as long as you have a dedicated place and quiet time for prayer. If your heart is open, and you have a dedicated place with minimal distractions, you will be able to meditate on the word of God and hear him speak to you. This is the second most important step in how to pray to God.
How to Pray to God with Meaningful Prayer
The Best Location for Prayer
The best location for prayer is a quiet place available to you every morning when you wake up. This place can be in your home or a Church. It has to be a place that is available to you EVERY DAY. It should be a dedicated place for prayer, and should be filled with things that will help you elevate your heart and mind toward God. Meaningful prayer requires the use of all our senses. This means having a Bible available, spiritual books, images that invoke a feeling of love for God, blessed objects such as a crucifix, as well as rosary beads. You may want candles or incense that smells like the inside of a church.
In Summary:
- Location available daily
- Location dedicated for prayer
- Contains Bible and spiritual books
- Contains images of God and saints
- Contains blessed objects
- Has a crucifix
- Has candles or incense (optional)
Tip #3: On How to Pray to God
Feeling Him There
ARE YOU LISTENING? Prayer is most effective when there is give and take. You can pray a meditative prayer well but if you do not give the Holy Spirit time to respond you may miss what God is saying. Be patient in prayer and wait in silence. God may not always speak to you in words, and sometimes he confirms something later. Being open to the Holy Spirit is vital to a healthy prayer life. This is the third most important step in how to pray to God.
How to Pray to God with Meaningful Prayer
Feeling the Presence of Christ
SAY NOTHING. JUST TAKE HIM IN. Another example of how to pray to God with meaningful prayer is through silence. This, to me, is the easiest of all prayers for a soul to learn how to pray. If you have never encountered Christ before and you want to feel the physical presence of Jesus, the prayer of silence is for you. This involves taking a trip to a Eucharistic adoration chapel in a church.
TRUST AND BELIEVE. Non-Christians I know who have gone to Eucharistic adoration with me have left touched by the immeasurable peace they have encountered through this type of prayer. Jesus in the Eucharist in a prayer of silence is the easiest method of how to pray for a beginner. His presence is palpable and no words are necessary. You just come to pay your respects. Sometimes a soul is graced while in Eucharistic adoration with feeling an anointing that descends from heaven. This has happened to me. It is a peaceful warm energy that comes from above and radiates over you.
BE COMPLETELY REAL. Just tell Him the truth about how you feel and where you are at right now in your life. And then submit. And then just wait on Him. Be prepared to wait a long while. Linger there. If you are struggling with belief, just pray and ask Him to help you overcome it. If you struggle with believing that He not a personal God, and does not care about or walk with you in your day-to-day moments, ask Him to help you overcome this too. If you feel He does not love you, or that you are unworthy of being loved, ask Him to remove your unholy thoughts. Just be totally raw, honest, and vulnerable with Him. Jesus is real and very much with you in this present moment. This is how to pray with your heart.
In Summary:
Tip #4: On How to Pray to God
Try Mental Prayer
ARE YOU GOING DEEP ENOUGH? An advanced prayer life includes regular time with God in mental prayer every day. You also need to learn about mental prayer by studying how to pray from the saints who have written about it over the centuries. Be patient and persistent. God often gives us periods of dryness before he graces us with a deeper prayer life. This is the fourth step in how to pray to God.
How to Pray to God with Meaningful Prayer
Go Deeper with Mental Prayer
If you currently have a faith walk with Christ and want to know how to have more meaningful prayer, I’d like to introduce you to the nuances of mental prayer and how to develop a regular prayer habit that can help you in your spiritual walk with Christ.
There are three main parts to mental prayer exercises and the first part is preparatory. I will explain how to pray in the first part by giving you sample prayers you can pray. The second part of mental prayer is the body, and I will give you sample books to read that will help you with this part of how to pray. The third part of mental prayer is the conclusion, and I will give you a very brief explanation of how to pray at the end of your hour of mental prayer.
VISUALIZE CHRIST. Souls who know how to pray to God and feel His presence are able to put themselves in the presence of God by visualizing Him in an intimate way. This is a special imaginative form of mental prayer that has been practiced for thousands of years. We cannot know that God loves us if we cannot imagine it. So the first step in learning how to pray to God is how to enter into His presence through our imagination.
MAKE A MOVIE IN YOUR MIND. If you have never done this, try to imagine yourself in a Biblical moment with Jesus and imagine yourself speaking to Him and He gazing at you and answering you. Try imagining Him there with you as you call upon His name. Visualize what He looks like. You may use an image of Jesus like the one on this page. Stare at it, look into His eyes. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you open your heart to love Him. For an example of a repentance prayer that does this, try this prayer: Jesus Have Mercy on Me and Thoroughly Wipe Out my Guilt.
In Summary:
- Visualize Christ
- Make a movie in your mind
- Say prayers of adoration, contrition, and thanksgiving (samples below)
- GO DEEPER WITH the 7 steps of mental prayer and using them while meditating on the daily Mass readings.
How to Pray to God
Sample Prayers for the First Part of Your Daily Meditation (Preparation)
Prayer to Jesus
I believe, Jesus, that you are really here and present to me. I recognize my nothingness and I humbly bring myself into your presence, knowing that if You will it, You can give me the graces I need to grow in faith and adoration for you. Look into my soul and see the condition of it. Please listen to my pleas for help.
You are my God and I humbly give you praise and adoration as my Lord and my Master. I submit to your absolute authority in my life. Please, Lord, look on me with eyes of mercy and see all the areas of my life that are in most need of your grace. I am unworthy to be in your presence because I am a sinner and I have offended you so many times with my pride and indifference.
I have many defects that I have been too weak to correct and I am deeply ashamed of them. I want to be rid of this guilt and I want my conscience freed from it. I beg you to not look at my faults but look at me with pity and pardon me of my sins. I beg you for the grace to overcome them once and for all. I know that with your grace I will be able to stop the sin and to amend my life so that I may one day merit to see You face to face. Please purify my heart and my lips, my mind and my body. Amen.
The Confiteor Prayer
I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done,
and in what I have failed to do;
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.
Prayer to the Eternal Father
Heavenly Father, I do not deserve that you should pay attention to me but by the merits of Jesus Christ, your Son, and my Redeemer, you have promised you will not reject my prayers. Jesus offers to You His homage, pleading to You for my soul through His past labors, through His Word, and through His Heart. It is by His tears and through His Most Precious Blood that I am able to pray to You. He adores You, and thanks You, and begs You for mercy on me and on the whole world.
He begs You for graces to give me from Your eternal fruitfulness. Eternal Father, whatever Jesus says to You on my behalf, I say the same. I make all His homage to You my own and I join Him in His intention. I only dare to present myself before You by invoking His holy name and through His merits. It is by His death and resurrection that I can come before You with confidence that You will hear me. Amen.
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Most Holy Spirit, My Paraclete, I am not capable without your inspiration to have a single good thought. I cannot even concentrate my thoughts without You helping me to control them. I cannot even raise my heart to You unless You attract it toward You. I cannot even love You unless You first put the love in my heart to give. I cannot even form a good resolution unless You convict my heart of the need for it. And I will never succeed unless You help me put it into practice by your grace.
Every good thing I have You have given to me. Every spiritual grace I have received You have given to me without merit. Since I recognize your omnipotence and my nothingness I renounce right now in this moment all my own thoughts, which are not capable of guiding me toward eternal life. I recognize that I know nothing about what is necessary for my own salvation and that I am reliant completely on You for all grace.
I am painfully aware that my own affections lead me toward evil and that they cannot be trusted. Please come, Holy Spirit, fill me with your presence. I abandon myself to You in order that You may guide me and illuminate my heart and mind. Help me pray my mental prayer well and to be committed to this every day. Help me grow in love for You and in virtue so that I may overcome the sins that afflict me right now. Inflame my heart and convert my will. I beg You to give me a heart that desires your holy will for my life and not my own selfish will. Amen.
How to Pray to God
Great Spiritual Readings for Mental Prayer
The Heart of Virtue
by Donald T. DeMarco
The Confessions
of St. Augustine
The Imitation of Christ
by Thomas a Kempis
The Friendship of Christ
by Robert Hugh Benson
Watch an instructional video on how to pray to God using mental prayer.
One Response
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Thanks be to God💖