Three Steps to Praying Every Day

Paul tells the church in Thessalonica to “pray continually,” and throughout its history Christ’s church has often tried to do exactly that. Christians who take on holy orders meet several times a day to pray. Many of them also pray each hour—on the hour—alone. In Russia, one of the most popular books among Christians for the past two hundred years is The Way of a Pilgrim, which is an account of a man who strives to do what Paul says—pray continually. He learns to pray thousands of times a day. He learns to pray as much as he breathes. He even tries to pray as much as his heart beats. He repeats one prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” The book gives an account of the power of this little prayer not only in the life of one pilgrim, but also in the lives of several people he meets along his way.
In 1857 a large revival within churches in America started in one of the unlikeliest of places: Wall Street, New York. A single businessman began a series of prayer meetings during the middle of the business day. Within a year thousands of people in New York, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. were meeting regularly to pray. Businesses would close during the mid-day and hang a sign saying, “We will re-open at the close of the prayer meeting.”
Most Christians do not need to be convinced about the power of prayer. We affirm it because we know we are supposed to affirm it. But despite the rich heritage of prayer in our churches, many of us never get into the habit of prayer. As a result, we do not pray very much when we are by ourselves or when we are together. And we miss out on a lot. Our families, friends, neighbors, and enemies miss out too. Most importantly, God misses out too, having so many children who are too busy or too distracted for him. Without prayer, our relationship with him suffers as we become little different than teenagers who refuse to communicate with their parents except for the times they need something. But there is hope. Prayer is always just one breath away, and there are three steps toward praying more regularly:
Step One: Unlearn Bad Ideas about Prayer
For every good idea about prayer, there must be about nine bad ones. One person I knew would resort to archaic English, like the kind you come across in the King James Version of the Bible, in his prayers. I used to attend a church that made much ado about who would pray during the service. The unwritten rule there was that you had to be male and wear a tie to pray. Once I caught on to that, I knew there wasn’t anything I could do about being male, so I was sure never to wear a tie whenever I joined in worship.
Many people think there is a specific formula to follow in order to have an official prayer: you bow your head, close your eyes, fold your hands (optional), begin by saying, “our Father,” and end by saying, “in Jesus’ name, Amen.” We also have certain phrases that mindlessly show up in our prayers, such as saying “Lord” after every noun we use, asking him to “be with” people, places, or things, and requesting “traveling mercies,” despite never using that phrase anywhere else.
Most destructively, we often limit the content of our prayers to other people’s physical problems. We may have numerous requests for others to pray with us for Great Aunt Eustace’s gout (and I am not discouraging that we care about and pray for other people’s physical needs), but we never invite our church family to pray on our behalf for things that really weigh on our hearts. If we are not asking others to pray for such things, chances are we are not praying for them ourselves either.
At the root of a lot of these ideas are good intentions behind them, but what ties them all together is the notion that prayer is a performance. Our children do not consider their conversations on our laps to be performances, and we welcome them all the same because they just want to be with us and talk to us. You cannot be “good” or “bad” at praying anymore than a child is “good” or “bad” at giving you a hug. Prayer is a symptom of a family relationship between God and you, which is why it is a shame that one of the most intimate aspects of our family relationship has become so cold and infrequent for so many people. If you want to change that, the first step is to unlearn that prayer is a performance.
Step Two: Relearn Good Ideas about Prayer
Jesus’ disciples learned much from him, and one thing they explicitly asked for was for him to teach them how to pray. And he did. Famously, he said that when they prayed they were to say: “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation” (Luke 11:2-4).
What does this tell us? God is our Father, so we should approach him as such. We should desire good things for God for his sake. Of course, good things for him are also the best things for us humans (the exact opposite of sin). God provides for us each day, and we should ask of him and thank him each day. We are sinners who ask for God’s forgiveness, and we show everyone that we know we are forgiven sinners when we forgive others. When we are tempted we have God’s enemies and ourselves to blame; we can trust that God will never lead us into such places.
Jesus’ instructions do not stop at what to pray. He also tells his disciples a story about a person who bugs his friend for stuff late at night. The friend is not in the mood to disturb his entire house to help this person right away, but because he had the audacity to ask at such an unreasonable hour—not because of the friendship itself—this person will end up getting what he needs from his friend. If this holds true for imperfect humans, how much more will it hold true for the perfect God who already wants to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
Jesus’ disciples needed to learn the right things about prayer, not only what kinds of things to say, but also how to say them. They had to be reassured that they could come to God anytime, anywhere, with anything, knowing that God would welcome them.
Step Three: Use a System
Unfortunately, prayer is not only viewed as a performance, but—even worse—a necessarily spontaneous performance. When people talk about not being “good” at prayer, I think what they really mean is that they do not do well thinking on their feet. They remove themselves from situations in which they would be called upon to pray, and perhaps they even pray less and less frequently by themselves.
There is good news for people who struggle coming up with spontaneous prayers, because the Scriptures and the heritage of the Christian church point toward having systems for our prayers. Most every Psalm in our Bibles were crafted carefully, not spontaneously. Many Psalms portray poetry in their original language (e.g. Psalm 119 is an alphabetic acrostic poem). Many prayers handed down in the Scriptures were also crafted carefully, from Mary’s Magnificat to Paul’s doxology in Romans. If people like David, Asaph, Mary, and Paul crafted their prayers to God, why shouldn’t we? Have you ever tried to write out your prayers? Perhaps you should set aside one time a week to write out a prayer to God. See what comes to mind. See if your focus, which seems so elusive when you try to pray during the day, is solid when you set pen to paper. If you have trouble writing something out, write out one of the Psalms and pray through it.
Another barrier to habitual prayer is the bad idea that our prayers must be lengthy. I have even heard people apologize for their short prayers. But nowhere does God command us to pray long prayers. In fact, Scripture has quite a few short prayers. Paul uses a one-word (maybe two-word) prayer to end 1 Corinthians, when he says, “Come, Lord!” Ancient Christians developed short prayers to say throughout the day. I already mentioned the Jesus prayer that was popular in Russia, but an even more helpful resource comes from John Chrysostom, a church leader from modern-day Turkey. He had one short prayer for each hour of the day. In order to get back in the habit of praying continually, print this list out, post it in your office, post it in your bathroom, magnetize it to your fridge, put it in your car, and place it in your bedroom (cf. Deut 6:4-9). Memorize this list, so whenever you look at a clock or a watch you will pray:
12AM. O Lord, do not deprive me of your heavenly blessings.1AM.   O Lord, deliver me from eternal torment.2AM.   O Lord, if I have sinned in my mind or thought, in word or deed, forgive me.3AM.   O Lord, deliver me from every ignorance and heedlessness, from pettiness of the soul and stony hardness of the heart.4AM.   O Lord, deliver me from every temptation.5AM.   O Lord, enlighten my heart darkened by evil desires.6AM.   O Lord, I, being a human being, have sinned; do you, being God, forgive me in your lovingkindness, for you know the weakness of my soul.7AM.   O Lord, send down your grace to help me, that I may glorify your holy name.8AM.   O Lord Jesus Christ, inscribe me, your servant, in the Book of Life, and grant me a blessed end.9AM.   O Lord my God, even if I have done nothing good in your sight, yet grant me, according to your grace, that I may make a start in doing good.10AM. O Lord, sprinkle on my heart the dew of your grace.11AM. O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, your sinful servant, cold of heart and impure, in your kingdom.12PM.  O Lord, receive me in repentance.1PM.    O Lord, don’t leave me.2PM.    O Lord, save me from temptation.3PM.    O Lord, grant me pure thoughts.4PM.    O Lord, grant me tears of repentance, remembrance of death, and the sense of peace.5PM.    O Lord, grant me mindfulness to confess my sins.6PM.    O Lord, grant me humility, charity, and obedience.7PM.    O Lord, grant me tolerance, magnanimity, and gentleness.8PM.    O Lord, implant in me the root of all blessings: the fear of you in my heart.9PM.    O Lord, vouchsafe that I may love you with all my heart and soul, and that I may obey in all things your will.10PM.  O Lord, shield me from evil persons and devils and passions and all other lawless matters.11PM.  O Lord, who knows your creation and that which you have willed for it, may your will also be fulfilled in me, a sinner, for you are blessed forevermore. Amen.
If you have found it hard to get in the habit of praying without a system, why not try these hourly prayers? It’s not even a big deal if you miss the hours while you sleep.
Lastly, it is okay to have some formulaic elements to your prayers, but we should never take anything we say to God for granted. When we call God our Father, we are recognizing our adoption into his family through Jesus Christ. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we are recognizing Jesus’ exclusive claim that no one can approach the Father but through him. His name is powerful, giving us by grace what he already is by nature—the Son of God. When we say “Amen,” we are saying “yes, may it be so,” already having faith that God has heard us and will respond. When we close our eyes, not even looking up toward heaven, we are mimicking the posture of a tax collector whom Jesus contrasted with a proud Pharisee. All the tax collector could say, without being able to look up to heaven, was “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus says that everyone who humbles themselves like the tax collector will be exalted, but people with proud prayers will be humbled, like the Pharisee who bragged to God about how greatly he served God, unlike evil people like that poor schlub the tax collector next to him.
God hears. God responds. God speaks. When we pray to him we recognize that we have been adopted into the family of the living God who wants to hear our prayers. Why not get into the habit of praying to him regularly?