Overview
How is your relationship with God? A survey of approximately 1,000 U.S. adults revealed that 29% included their relationship with God as part of their 2022 New Year’s Resolutions (Lifeway Research, 2021). And there’s good reason to do so. In addition to the spiritual benefits, closeness to God has a positive relationship with one’s overall well-being (Culver, 2020).
The question then is, how can we feel closer to God? Relationships require communication to flourish, and our relationship with our holy Father is no different. God speaks to us through his word (i.e., the Bible) and we speak to God through prayer. When we feel distant from God, it is most likely us who has drifted. Perhaps even just a short prayer can help bridge the chasm and boost our feeling of closeness to our creator.
The question then is, how can we feel closer to God? Relationships require communication to flourish, and our relationship with our holy Father is no different. God speaks to us through his word (i.e., the Bible) and we speak to God through prayer. When we feel distant from God, it is most likely us who has drifted. Perhaps even just a short prayer can help bridge the chasm and boost our feeling of closeness to our creator.
The Experiment
We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 298 Christians on the online research platform Prolific to test whether praying enhances feelings of closeness to God. Participants completed a 1-minute writing activity in which they were randomly assigned to either write a prayer to God or to write about their day (a neutral “control” condition). After completing the writing activity, participants were asked “How distant or close do you feel to God right now, at this moment?” on a 1-7 scale (1 = Very Distant, 7 = Very Close).
Results
Participants in the prayer condition were significantly more likely to report feeling closer to God (avg. = 5.30) than participants in the neutral condition (avg. = 4.72), (p = 0.001). The results suggest that, indeed, prayer does make us feel closer to God, even a simple 1-minute prayer. The difference of 0.58 on a 1-7 scale equates to a 12% increase in closeness to God, a small-to-medium effect size, as illustrated in the graph below.
The results were not influenced by participants’ demographic, attitudinal, or behavioral traits. Specifically, there were no significant interactions with gender, age, Christian denomination, importance of religion in one’s life, or how often one actually prays. We did, however, find significant positive relationships between closeness with God and age, frequency of prayer, frequency of reading the Bible, and religion’s importance in one’s life.
More details regarding our methodology and statistical analysis can be found here.
More details regarding our methodology and statistical analysis can be found here.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to feel closer to God, pray. Even praying for just a short period of time, in this case about 1 minute, seems to help us feel closer to our heavenly Father. It will be interesting to see what else we can do to strengthen these feelings of closeness. In our next experiment, we test whether reading a few Bible verses can provide a similar boost.
References
Culver, J. (2021). How Consistency in Closeness to God Predicts Psychological Resources and Life Satisfaction: Findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(1), 103–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520956710
Lifeway Research (2021). American Views on New Year’s Resolutions: A Survey of 1,005 Americans. https://research.lifeway.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/American-Views-on-New-Years-Resolutions-Sept-2021-Report.pdf
Lifeway Research (2021). American Views on New Year’s Resolutions: A Survey of 1,005 Americans. https://research.lifeway.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/American-Views-on-New-Years-Resolutions-Sept-2021-Report.pdf
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Daniel A. BrownDan serves as lead scientist and editor-in-chief of Faith Research. He received his doctorate from Harvard University in 2019, where he was awarded the Wyss Award for Excellence in Research for his dissertation work. He is a lifelong follower of Christ, and directs Faith Research to help all of us with our Christian walk.
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