The Practice of Prayer

Making time for prayer
Our lives are in competition to our prayers. So often we fill our lives with many busy things to do, attempting to gain our own salvation. The hardest thing about prayer is not what we say or the saying of it, but setting time aside for it. This hardest work is the only part of prayer that someone cannot do for you. No one can make the time to pray except you. We need to focus our lives around our prayer, to make it a part of who we are.

How often?
So if we are going to make a prayer a part of our lives, we should ask when we should do it. Does the Bible have anything to say to this? Some say we should be praying always, at every moment. Ideally, this is great— but realistically, it is not practical. We could have a sense of God’s presence all day long, but this is not prayer. Some pray through everything, but most do not have the discipline for this. And the Bible does not require this.

What the Bible does mention is to pray at every regular time of prayer. In Jewish society, in the first century, there were regular times of prayer that everyone participated in—once in the morning (about 9am) and once in the afternoon (about 3pm). There was also an optional noon prayer time. Almost everyone thanked God for their food at meals, and a few prayed in the evening time, either at sunset or bedtime.

Unfortunately, today, our society has no daily prayer times. This means that we must create our own. How often should we pray? Biblically, we should pray a minimum of twice a day—once in the morning and once in the afternoon or evening. If you are just starting, however, if you can establish just one time of regular prayer a day, that would be sufficient. Later, add another, and, if you desire, another. And, before you eat, just thank God for the food.

How long?
Some say that we should be praying as long as possible. Some boast about their ability to pray for hours, and many churches encourage people to spend as long as possible in prayer—hours a day if possible. However, Jesus encouraged us to do just the opposite: “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.” (Matthew 6:7). Jesus encourages us to keep our prayers brief and to the point. The issue in prayer is not how long it is, but the fact that you are asking God. God isn’t impressed with long speeches. But he does want us to ask. Thus, we should pray as often as we can, but not with great length.

Repetition in prayer
A similar issue is whether we should repeat ourselves in prayer. Jesus told us not do: “Do not use vain repetition in prayer.” And yet Jesus told us to pray the Lord’s prayer every time we pray. What does this mean? It means that God does not want us repeating the same phrase over and over again—he heard us the first time and doesn’t need a repeat performance a second later. However, if a prayer has not been answered yet, then later in the day, or the next day, we can repeat the same prayer. We can speak praise to God once or twice a day, but not speak a phrase over and over again.

Aloud or silent?
Some people pray in silence, while other speak out loud. It depends on what works best for you. Some are able to focus better if they speak out loud. If we are praying with others, we should speak aloud. But others are more comfortable praying in silence. God can read our thoughts, so it doesn’t really matter.

Alone or with others?
Some take Jesus’ words about “praying in a closet” as a command that we should always pray alone. What Jesus was really saying is that we should never pray in order to impress other people, but focus on God. If we have a problem with this, then we should pray silently. However, the Lord’s prayer was taught for us to pray with others, not by ourselves. If we can, our morning and/or evening prayers should be done with others. But we should also have time to pray by ourselves, even as Jesus did.

The pattern of prayer
For our basic prayer life, there is a regular pattern of prayer that was used by Jesus. We begin our prayer with praise or thanksgiving, so we have caught God’s attention (Psalm 100:4). We can use a psalm for this, if we want, or a song we sing in church. If we need to, then we confess our sins (Psalm 32). Then we commit ourselves to the Lord. The phrase used by Jews (and Jesus) in the first century is called the Shema, and is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Then we make our requests to the Lord, beginning with the Lord’s prayer (Matthew 6:9-13). We can make however many requests we like before the Lord at this time.

Beyond this basic pattern of prayer, we can participate in other kinds of prayer. Some have the gift of tongues, and can use that gift in their personal prayer lives. Others have the gift of hearing God’s voice, and can take time—even a long time—to hear what God is saying to them. Others will spend time singing songs to God. Some will play music to God. All this is good, and we should use our abilities to pray as often as we can. But we should not exchange it for the basic pattern of prayer—praise, commitment and request. That is the foundation for our prayer life.

Lives of prayer
Our lives are to be about prayer. Prayer should not just be the punctuation for our prayer, but the outline of who we are. One of my favorite songs is “Make my life a prayer to you.” That has become the focus of my life. I find that my time of prayer becomes who I am before God and before others. In prayer, I am asking God to remake me and my world in accordance to His will. Because of my request, God acts in power in my life and in others’ lives. Thus, many lives has been changed and re-formed simply because of prayer. Prayer can be the most powerful force in our lives. If we pray, we can be different. If we become prayerful people, the world can be different.

Let us have lives filled with prayer:
As often and as briefly as we can.