The Easiest Upkeep

The way to regularly maintain and increase your spirituality is to apply the habits known as the Sunday School answers: Reading the scriptures, saying your prayers, going to church, giving service, and so on. However, most of these require a somewhat substantial investment of time and effort. However, one of them is so quick and easy, we can do it even while we're actively doing other things. Of these forms of spiritual upkeep, the easiest by far is prayer.

Prayer simply means talking to God. This is usually done vocally, while kneeling or standing, with one's eyes closed and one's arms folded, but it's actually extremely flexible. We can pray vocally, or just in our heads. Kneeling and folding your arms is respectful, but not necessary; we can pray in any position. We can even pray with our eyes open, which is helpful in emergencies and while driving. The main purpose of prayer is to connect our hearts to God's, and almost any way we do that can be considered a form of prayer.

Prayer is so easy, I'm surprised we don't do it more often. The scriptures urge us to "pray always," and that it actually possible, even while we go about our daily lives, assuming that it doesn't matter that we probably can't pray in our sleep. We can literally spend every waking moment with a prayer in our hearts, so why don't we? Prayer is so easy, and its benefits are so great, it makes sense for a person to pray almost constantly, and thus constantly maintain their connection with God through the Holy Ghost. The other forms of spiritual upkeep take up a certain amount of time, but praying is something we can do almost effortlessly while we're doing other things, thus requiring almost no investment of time or energy.

Yet, despite the low cost of prayer, the benefits are amazing. At the very least, it helps us connect to the Holy Ghost, who can offer us a good deal of guidance and other aid. We can also request special blessings and even miracles through prayer, and many of those prayers have been answered affirmatively, depending on the individuals' needs. Prayer can be a key to revelation and it can bring great peace to your heart.

Several months ago, I bought a watch with an hourly chime to remind me to pray frequently. I encourage you to pray frequently as well, and that is an invitation that I am very comfortable extending, since I know it'll cost you next to nothing to accept it and it will grant you blessings far greater than the cost of the investment. I know that we're busy and that it's hard to find the time or energy to do the other Upkeep things, but since praying costs us next to nothing, we will almost always have the time and energy it takes to pray.