5 Tips to Stay Awake While Praying

 
Prayer is the bedrock of every believer's life. It is one of the elements that will ensure that you experience a victorious life. 
Prayer is an art - it can be learnt and can be practised. Every assurance you ever need for your life, your endeavour or for a glorious time on earth is weaned from the bosom of having a rich prayer life. 
However, sometimes, believers get tired in the course of this activity. Many people experience burnout and end up sleeping off while engaging in this spiritual activity and solutions are constantly being sought after.  
This has birthed the need for this article to teach you how to stay awake when you pray. 
1. Pray in the spirit a lot
Romans 8:26-27 shows us how “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
You won't ever go wrong praying in tongues a lot. This doesn't include the type of prayer where you lay on your bed and whisper the tongues while battling sleep. When you're about to make use of your tongues to keep you awake, you have to keep it hard and fast - One that touches your spirit, soul and body. Let such tongues be one that can keep your mental faculty alert at that instant. 
From experience, pacing while engaging in this type of tonguing activity helps to restore your alertness. If you're the agile type, you can make use of your various acrobatic styles - However, remember, in all you do, safety first. 
In your bid to be active while praying in the spirit, in no situation should you engage your social media apps as it has been noted among believers in this generation. Refuse to be tempted to place your tongues on “auto cruise” as you contribute your daily 3km quota to Instagram or any other app.

2. Pray with messages from anointed men of God
Sometimes, we’re not really sleepy. Our spirit only needs something to help rev us up and messages from anointed ministers have been proven to help with that. 
In this case, your prayer becomes spontaneous and you'll be surprised that you have successfully prayed the whole length of the message you are listening to. Praying while listening to God's word from His anointed also opens up your spirit to receive better - that is, words of prophecies that you might have otherwise killed in the realm of common sense make sense to you as you receive them while praying. 

3. Pray with anointed songs from ministers of the gospel
Ephesians 5:19 says, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord”.
This means that using psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to help in your supplication to God is not wrong.
Now, this particular one is very subject to the peculiarities of each person.  
You, as the believer, should be sensitive enough in the spirit to know what to use and what not to use as a song to aid your prayers. 
If you believe that listening to slow music or instrumentals will make you sleep off, please avoid such and instead replace them with chants or songs filled with more vocals. However, if you end up getting distracted by the cymbals or singing of a song, kindly stick with slow, simple but spiritual songs and instrumentals.
Going forward, however, this particular point will hinge on our first point - that you pray in the spirit a lot as just music can either bore you to sleep or distract you. 
Therefore, have a goal as to why that particular song must be played which in this case, is to remove the stillness and sleepiness that the devil uses against you while praying.

4. Have expectations
This has never for once failed me as having expectations burning red hot in my heart is enough to keep you active and your eyes shining no matter how long prayer takes.
To avoid sleeping off while praying, have expectations - if not for yourself, have for your loved ones. 
Imagine a scenario where someone has a loved one who is sick with an incurable disease like Cancer, such a person does not need further prompts to stay awake while praying as all of their hope is hinged on supernatural healing.
On a more serious consideration, you should begin to think that you sleep off because you think you have another option to fall back on even “if God does not answer you” so you can afford to be slack about praying.
Remember that there is no time wasted when you pray, so, each time, go to the place of prayers with expectations - if not for yourself, have it for your loved one or your country.

5. Have an accountability partner or friend who prays with you
The Bible says in Proverbs 27:17, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”
Spiritual relationships and families are some of the best accountability systems you could ever ask for. Having friends who will be ready to give you that little push each time you doze off while praying is what your life needs to experience a turnaround so, don't get offended the next time it happens - they do it because they love you and want to see you get better.
The presence of this second person when you pray can help you stay alert and watch out for one another. 
So, in all you do, don't despise supernatural friendships.

I hope that after taking note of all these tips, your prayer life will stop halting and you will be able to go on that prayer chain you've always looked forward to without bothering about sleeping off.