One of the best privileges we have as believers is that we get to know and spend time with God, hearing him speak to us and talking to him. I would encourage Christians to be spending time with God each day. Note, two things here. First, I don’t say that you must read your Bible every day. We are not specifically commanded to do this but we are strongly urged to meditate on God’s Word. This is important because this does not exclude those who might struggle with reading. Meditating means taking time to think about, ponder, chew over, pray through what God has said in his Word. S
Secondly, when I was younger, evangelicals were encouraged to have what became known as a daily quiet time. This involved setting aside some time to pray and to read a passage of Scripture, often with the help of Bible reading notes. I don’t think we need to follow an exact formula -and I think the Quiet Time became formulaic and legalistic at times. Furthermore, some people will find bible reading notes unhelpful. I’ve never particularly enjoyed using them. However, some people do find them really useful, I’ve even contributed to one set of Bible notes. So, find what works best for you.
What I want to talk about specifically here is about prayer, cultivating our time with God by training ourselves to talk with him regularly. I’ve found a few things helpful in this regard. My personal approach is as follows.
I tend to set aside time in the morning, just after my wife has gone to work. Over the years, I’ve found it helpful to use something to structure my prayers. Often, I use the order of service for morning prayer from Common Worship (the Church of England liturgy). I find this helpful because it takes you through confession, silence, reflection, praise and thanksgiving, requests and blessing. I’ve also used other prompts including Valley of Vision, a book of puritan prayers. I’m currently taking a statement from the Westminster Shorter Catechism each morning and using that as my prompt.
The other thing I tend to do is to read one of the Psalms each morning. This means that through the years, I’ve worked through all of the Psalms numerous times. What I’m doing by using some liturgy and Psalms is two things. First, I’m giving structure to my prayers, secondly, I’m helping to build content. Sometimes it is helpful when we are not sure what to say to start by using the words of others. This is helpful when (as is the case with much liturgy), the words are directly from Scripture. We are learning to pray as God has taught us.
However, things don’t stop there. I don’t just read the words on the page but allow them to prompt me to identify the specific things I need to confess, give thanks for or ask for either on behalf of myself or others.
What have you found helpful in teaching you to pray?
Faithroots 