A Prayer Rule For Modern Times
“Good morning Lord, help my day to go well. Amen.”
“Lord, give me a parking space”.
“Sorry I didn’t check in a lot today God. I love you. Give me good dreams. Goodnight.”
Like a lot of people, I’ve said the above prayers too many times to count. In retrospect they feel like symptoms of a bigger issue: a lack of focus on prayer in my wider life.
When I was actually able to sit in times of substantive prayer, I enjoyed those sacred places immensely. I’d always found it to be profoundly beneficial to my soul. Yet I never set aside the time to really pray in any substantial way and so I found myself squeezing in these little prayers when I could.
This led me to ask hard questions about myself when it came to prayer. Thankfully at the same time I was asking these questions, I was just becoming involved in a two year spiritual formation cohort. Instantly our cohort practice led me to the very simple but profound answer to the questions I was asking: a prayer rule.
Prayer rules have been the open secret to Christian spirituality for centuries. Although they have a long and storied history in sequestered Monastic life, Prayer Rules have been available for the common folk for a while now.
If a Prayer Rule is news to you, or you’ve heard about Prayer Rules but never tried them, then now is your chance. A Prayer Rule, simply put, is a schedule or cycle of prayers throughout the day. In Monastic life, this looked like “Praying The Hours” which in essence was stopping your work at set times of the day to pray into that specific space and time. Even before the Church, Jewish spiritual life was structured around certain prayers at the start and end of the day.
Although it’s a deep and complex topic, I’m a firm believer that in our modern times we can make steps towards a Prayer Rule rather easily. For me it took three things:
Three timers set on my phone at 9am, 12pm, and 6pm.
Committing to a very, very short set of prayers during those times.
Protecting and holding these times of prayers in my schedule (this is probably the most important part).
But what does that look like? Read on for a handy guide that I hope will inspire you to do the same.
Morning Prayer
Time: When you rise.
Taking baby steps is important. You walk before you run, and in this case we’re going to be crawling.
The morning is easily one of the most important times of the day. We prepare ourselves physically and emotionally for what is ahead of us. Why then do we shower and eat breakfast, but not pray?
So we’ll start simply and humbly. Before we get out of bed, or before we leave our bedroom, we simply raise our hands in the age old Orans position and say:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Midday Prayer
Time: 12pm/1pm
The middle of the day is often important for the very reason that it’s half way through our 9-5pm schedules, and also because it’s when we often eat Lunch. Utilizing this break in our schedule, we can pray like this:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Evening/Bedtime Prayer
Time: 9pm or Right before bed
The day has carried on and we’re finally in that place of rest (hopefully). We’ve checked our phones for the last time, and made sure no super important emails from the President of the United States came at the last minute. We are, in theory, ready to sleep. But not so fast, because we’re going to pray again. This time we’re going to kneel at the foot of our beds and lift our minds, hearts, and hands (again) in prayer:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
That awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.
Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people; to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of your people Israel.
Now we make the sign of the cross as we say:
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; That awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace.
Older Than Your Sneakers
The important thing about this cycle of prayer is that I didn’t make it up. It’s rooted in some of the oldest Christian practices that we know of. The Didache (Circa 80 AD) , an early Christian manual for new and becoming converts instructs Christians to pray the Lord’s prayer three times a day. The other little bits and pieces are from a great daily prayer manual called “Pray Daily”. This helpful book is published by Christ Church Plano and the book is 90% scripture. Their prayer structure is segmented into four daily easily accessible prayers for each day of the week. I highly encourage you to pick one up from our resources table after a service, or head to the Pray Daily site and pick one up. It’s a great next step in maturing your prayer life to utilize a book and this one has been very helpful.
Some thoughts and things to keep in mind when it comes to learning how to pray or getting a Prayer Rule in place:
1. Repetition is not redundant.
We are human and we need to constantly remind ourselves of God’s presence in our daily lives. We do necessary repetitive actions in other parts of our lives, why should it be any different for prayer? If we shower, brush our teeth, and get needed rest for the benefit of our bodies, we should also be praying for the benefit of our souls. Another thing to note is that the earliest Church had this paradigm of repetition in prayer since the beginning, and Jesus almost certainly prayed the daily Jewish prayers in his own life.
2. Start slow and simple, and work your way up to longer times of prayer.
What matters is that we grow, learn, and expand into our prayer practice with reverence, humility, and an open heart. We also want this prayer practice to be sustainable in our lives, because what matters is building our overall life rhythm around God. As much as we want to be Olympic Champions of prayer, we, like athletes, need to train ourselves and work our way up towards something more robust. This will take incremental practice and consistency.
3. Structure is your friend, not a quenching of the Spirit.
I grew up in a Christian world that was at best dubious about pre-written prayers, and at worst outright against them. Spontaneous prayer was highly valued and seen as a sign of spiritual maturity. The irony in that posture is that the Church, largely, has never had this framework when it came to prayer. Christian prayer has its root in Jewish prayer practices, and much of that prayer practice was recitation of the Psalms and various time-tempered prayers that were repeated at certain occasions or times of the day. The benefit of pre-written and time-tested prayers is that they give us words when we don’t have them. It also allows us to agree in prayer with the words of ages past regardless of how we feel or what words we may or may not have at the moment. Spontaneous prayer can and should balance our prayer lives, but there is a freedom and grounding that we find in the pre-written prayers of the Church.
4. We are embodied beings; we can and should pray with our bodies.
Unlike the modern (I would argue, hellenized) conception of self, the Biblical conception of self is that we are embodied beings. Matter matters, and what we do with our bodies especially matters. It also says something about what we believe when we use our whole self to praise God, Worship Him, or pray to Him. Kneeling, bowing, making the sign of the cross, and more postures have been a part of the Christian prayer experience for countless centuries now and there is something powerful about letting our whole selves align with our words. If you’re new to this practice, start with what feels comfortable and work your way up. Something simple like kneeling or the Orans (linked above) posture are great places to start.
Beginning the Journey
For those just beginning this prayer journey, take solace and joy in the fact that God will be alongside us, doing the work of formation in our lives. I am reminded of the verse Isaiah 64:8 that says:
Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Although it’s up to us to choose into this journey and stay committed, it’s not actually through our own power that change comes. If we allow ourselves to be molded by God, He is faithful to that work. When we surrender our agency, and more importantly our schedules to God, we are saying ‘yes’ to the process of Spiritual Formation.
Lastly, go into this without fear of what may happen, or anxiety over the outcome. Let me encourage you that although formation can be uncomfortable or even painful at times the end result is always well worth the process. Starting a Prayer Rule is a trust fall exercise with God. The drop is scary, but falling into His arms outweighs all the cares this world can bring.
