Benefits of Prayer

Prayer fulfils these three very basic psychological needs which all people share, whether they believe in God or not:

1.  Prayer helps us to put into words exactly what is troubling us.  It is almost impossible to deal with a problem while it remains vague and nebulous.  Praying, in a way, is very much like writing our problems down on paper.  If we ask help for a problem — even from God — we must put it into words.

2.  Prayer gives us a sense of sharing our burdens, of not being alone.  Few of us are so strong that we can bear our heaviest burdens, our most agonizing troubles, all by ourselves.  Sometimes our worries are of so intimate a nature that we cannot discuss them even with our closest relatives or friends.  Then prayer is the answer.  Any psychiatrist will tell us that when we are pent-up and tense, and in an agony of spirit, it is therapeutically good to tell someone our troubles.  When we can’t tell anyone else — we can always tell God.

3.  Prayer puts into force an active principal of doing.  It’s a first step toward action.  I doubt if anyone can pray for some fulfilment, day after day, without benefiting from it — in other words, without taking some steps to bring it to pass.

— Dale Carnegie