How I Started Talking to God for Help With My Health and Fitness

Have you ever had a tough time turning to God and asking for His help?

I know that I did. I had no idea how to even start the process of prayer. It was all very intimidating to me, so much so that I was genuinely afraid of talking to God and so I just didn’t do it.

• What if I said the wrong thing or used the wrong words?
• How do I even start doing this?
• Why do I need to even talk to God, doesn’t he already know what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling already?

These were the questions that ran through my head constantly whenever the thought of trying to pray popped into my head. 

Do any of these questions sound familiar to you? 

Have you ever felt that you needed to pray to God but just didn’t know how or talked yourself out of it? 

Starting the process of prayer and speaking to God can be daunting, especially if it’s not something that you’ve ever done before or are in a place in your life where you feel lost or hopeless. 

I found it to be extremely difficult for all those reasons and more.

In this article, I’m going to help you understand how and why you should start the process of prayer.

About 6 years ago I restarted my health journey. 

I had discovered strength training which I found to be much more effective than trying to do endless hours of cardio and I had started cutting sugar and refined carbohydrates out of my diet. 

For the first time in 15-20 years, I was actually starting to see results from a weight loss perspective. 

However, I was still feeling lost and unhappy with my life and with what it was that I was doing. 

My problem was that I wasn’t doing things for the right reason. 

I wanted to lose weight because I thought it would make people see me differently, I wouldn’t be some lazy loser or crappy mom in their eyes if I got thinner. 

I was striving to change because I thought it was what other people wanted from me and that wasn’t the right path to happiness.

I started feeling this conviction, this desire, to talk to God but I didn’t know how to start. I was afraid that I wasn’t good enough to talk with Him, that I spent so much time running away from Him that I couldn’t talk with Him anymore. 

That fear kept me from even starting the process, but God has an amazing way of drawing you to Him and that conviction never left me. 

So, I spoke to my husband because I knew prayer was something that he did on a regular basis and I figured, if anyone could help me start, it would be him.

The advice that I got was so simple yet so life-changing for me. 

My husband told me, Just talk to God like you’re talking to me and tell Him exactly what’s on your mind. 

If you need to write down your thoughts in a letter, do it and then read that letter out loud to God. I had overcomplicated the process so much that it had become this intimidating, huge mountain but when I thought about just writing a “Dear God” letter, the act of prayer became a lot less daunting. 

Writing the letter out helped, it helped me organize my thoughts so that when I did read it out, my fears and anxieties were focused, and I could be very specific with what I was asking God for help with doing. 

For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel embarrassed or afraid of connecting with God anymore. The first time I read my letter to God, I felt this huge wave of relief wash over me and I really felt at peace for the first time in my adult life.

To start the process, try the following steps.

They will help you clear your mind, and focus on your “whys” for reaching out and speaking with God.

1. Find a quiet place where you can be by yourself for 15-30 minutes.
   
2. Just start writing a letter to God. “Dear God” and then start jotting down your thoughts, concerns, and questions to Him.
   
3. You don’t need to be fancy or think that you have to have exactly the right words to speak to God. He doesn’t care about fancy speech; he just wants you to reach out to Him first.
   
4. Begin your letter with just 3 things that you are grateful for, any 3 things that you are happy about within your life.
   
5. List out the thing that you are most anxious/nervous/stressed out about and why it’s causing so much stress. In my case, it was trying to figure out why I was so unhappy even though I was losing weight and getting stronger.
   
6. Ask God to soften your heart so that when He does respond to you, you can hear what he’s saying to you. Whether it’s to give you strength, wisdom, or even just clarity on what you’re supposed to be doing in life next. Whatever it is that you feel that you need to reduce the worry that you mentioned in step 5.

I had overcomplicated the process in my own head and psyched myself out of a relationship with Him for a long time. 

The truth is, it’s never too late to start talking to God. It’s never too late to turn to Him for support, guidance, and love. 

Have faith, start the conversation with God because that’s what He’s waiting for — for all of us to take that first step back to Him.