When do you pray? Do you pray when you need to pray, or when you don’t need to? Just why would you ever need to pray in the first place? Does praying even work? Is anyone or anything out there listening? Just who is prayer for in the first place?

Pretend that no one is listening, no one will answer, and there will not be any form of divine intervention we can imagine or expect. So with that premise, let us pray as the true warrior prays. Let us pray when we are not in any need, not in any distress, not in dire straits. Let us pray solely for the experience of prayer. Let us pray so that we experience prayer without expectations, ulterior motives, or hidden agendas. Let us pray just for the sake of praying. Let us engage in the act of attempting to communicate with our “non-existent” higher power … just so we can have the experience.

True warriors pray when they don’t have to, with or without belief. True warriors do this so that they will not have to work at prayer when it really is needed … because by then they will have become adept at prayer, and will have enjoyed the benefits of the act of praying to their higher power for some time—solely for the comfort of prayer and belief. Anything above and beyond that will be (and truly is) gravy … and a demonstration of how effective we can be when we put our minds to an activity that can only help us when done properly. You are warriors. Like many things in life, prayer is optional, but the practice of disciplines like prayer and meditation will greatly improve the quality of your life, without cost or expense to you or your soul. You can only benefit—as will those around you. So it has been written.