When classes in session, students are here, and I get to stay in Duluth, prayer, regular,

I have a set time every single day, absolutely, I'm there. But when I'm out of town,

it's hard to find time to pray. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Essentially Presents.

If there's anything we all know, we all need to do, what we don't do is pray. How do you pray

if you're a busy person? I say number one, let's just,

first of all, be honest. Be honest about how busy you are, which is legit, but also we almost

always make time for what we think is most important. This is just what we do. Now, you might be someone who's like, no, I regularly skip meals, even though I know that's important because I get so caught up in other things. Or yeah, I, you know, my sleep keeps decreasing because I get so wrapped up in my work, even though I know what's important important. Yep, I get it. In those cases, work is more important than food, in my mind, at least. In those cases, my activities, whatever I was doing was more important to getting to bed on time.

And in our case, when we struggle to pray, we, when we're busy, we know that it is easy

to prioritize other things more than taking time to spend time with God. We make time for the things that we truly believe are important. That's the first thing. Let's just be honest about that. How do I actually make it a part of my life if I'm so busy? Well, number one is look at your life. A lot of our students will say, well, when I was in college, I had all this time, I'd make a whole hour every single day. But now I'm working from these hours to these hours,

and it's really intense. I don't know if I can make it in for a whole hour, but I used to be able to do that. Great, great. Don't look back to what it used to be. How is it now? Or they'd say like, well, I just, you know, someday it'll be different.

Someday I'll be able to slow down.

Okay, don't look ahead to what it might be.

Or they might say things, well, I just, you know, someday it'll be different. Someday I'll be able to slow down.

Okay, don't look ahead to what it might be.

Or they might say things like, I just really want it to be different. Okay, don't look to what you want it to be. Don't look back to what it used to be or ahead to what it might be or what you might want it to be. Look at your life right now as it is. in this season of your life, what is a way that you can pray so that you actually grow closer to Jesus? Not the past season, not a future season, not an other season, but in this

season of your life, what is one way you can pray that will actually get you closer to Jesus?

And the idea behind this is, if I don't plan it, I won't be able to do it. So I have a plan. And I was just talking to a student the other day about this because it's summer right now. And he has this summer job that he said, I work every morning from 6 a.m. to 1230s when I go to bed at night? And like, he said,

when am I going to pray? Okay, well, say, that's a busy day. You got a busy, busy life. What's your plan? Because if you just say, well, hopefully I'll pray today, you're probably not going to pray today. So what's your plan? Meaning, when am I going to pray? Where am I going to pray and how am I going to pray? So how am I going to pray? So, when am I going to pray? Every one of us needs to say, okay, this is the time. And not just this is the time on my best day or not this is the time if I get to bed at, you know, at normally early hour, but when are you actually going to pray? Number two, where? That place could be the kitchen table.

As long as there's not a family surrounding you. That place could be, you know, that the next to your bed, as long as it's not disruptive. I have a buddy who, um, he had a little prayer space down in their living room, which basically meant he had like a recliner and he would sit in there and he said every morning he would get up, and He would get up super early because his plan was, okay, this is the time I'm going to get

up. I have a bunch of kids. I have to get up before them. But he said that as he walked down the hallway at like 5.15 in the morning so he could pray, just walking down the hallway would wake up one of his kids and like, dad, are you awake? He's like, okay, I guess I'm not gonna pray.

I'm gonna be with my child.

So what he did was,

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