Prayer can be a lot of things. In some churches, candle flames represent prayers. An artist friend of mine often paints his prayers. A musician friend prays spontaneous prayers on the piano, sometimes with words and sometimes without.
You can also pray with an app. Applications (“apps”) for smartphones and tablets are a new technology that many people–myself included–are using to enhance their prayer lives. Here are three that I use:
- Honor Your Inner Monk is a free app developed by St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. Beautifully designed, the app opens with a short excerpt from a Benedictine chant and a wisp of smoke before offering either a morning or an afternoon prayer.
You can keep track of how often you pray, and choose from extra features such as recordings of Gregorian chants. It is available for both Apple and Android devices.
- OurPrayer is a free prayer app produced by Guideposts that functions something like a prayer-chain for your phone or tablet. This free app allows you to request prayer, share your prayer with others, call the prayer line, view answered prayers and more. It is available for Apple devices.
- 31 Ways to Pray for Your Kids is a new app that I helped develop. It gives you a short Bible-based prayer every day based on a fruit of the Spirit or a Christian virtue you want to see in the kids you love.
The app was inspired by an article that has been published around the world and translated into such languages as Korean, Spanish, and Swahili.
That article was adapted into a prayer card that many people have kept in Bibles or purses and worn out in praying for children, grandchildren, students, nephews, nieces–even themselves.
So now we have the app! It also allows you to set a daily reminder to pray. It’s $1.99 and available for iPhones or iPads.
Each of these apps allow you to share prayers with others via Twitter and Facebook, and are practically guaranteed to enhance and enlarge your prayer life.
