The “Right Amount” of Prayer

Pentecostal preachers like to tell stories about how they were counseling with someone, found out that they weren’t being very spiritual, and then point out that all the trouble in their life was because of this. I’ve heard this many times. The lesson is that, if you would just pray, your situation will improve. And, sure, we Christians will all nod and agree with that. That’s part of the basic premise of a relationship with God, right? But if we draw a line through those two points — first, that life is terrible if you don’t pray at all, and second, that life is “better” if you pray “more” — then there must be a third point on that graph at which you pray “enough” that you don’t have any more problems. Except, I don’t know anyone like that. Does anyone else know someone that doesn’t have any problems? If you do, please point me towards them, because I want to find out how much they pray. I want to know the amount of prayer it takes to not have any problems. I’d settle for how much it takes to just get me past the health problems I currently have. After almost 3 years, I still have no clue how much that is, and, if I’m being honest, I’m kind of tired of trying to figure that out.