Preparing the heart for prayer

When fitting spiritual moments into a busy day, it's tempting to quickly close our eyes, fold our hands, and hammer out a quick prayer. That process takes less than a few minutes.

But the Bible makes it clear that, before praying, we are to prepare our heart. Psalm 57:7 (KJV) states,

My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.

(In place of the word "fixed," other translations have "committed" or "prepared.") Similarly, Proverbs 23:12 (KJV) states,

Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.

(The Hebrew word rendered as "apply" also could be translated as "come," meaning that our hearts and ears are "coming" to God.)

Note from these passages that the Bible does not give a set recipe for preparing our hearts for prayer;  we should be very thankful for that! God does not want us to follow some set of ritualistic machinations before prayer. Rather, he wants our hearts and minds in a correct spiritual setting so that we can properly commune with him. Doing so will help us get more out of our prayer lives.