- Part 1 – Start Small
- Part 2 – Be consistent
Many of us have prayed regularly at some points in our lives. But at some point, the ‘regularity’ turned into ‘spasmodic’. And we wake up one day realising that prayer plays a very small part in our lives.
The key, I believe, is to establish a rhythm for prayer. A rhythm that will give us some structure when life gets busy or prayer becomes more difficult. This post, continues to look at how we practically establish a rhythm. The third tip is to do it with others. Well perhaps not actually physically with others, but including others in on own journey. We were not meant to be a sea of individuals beings, doing our own thing, trying to figure it all out on our own.
Over the summer, I was determined to go to the gym, and get fit (or at least fitter!). Left to my own devices, I might not have persevered. But I started telling some others about my plans. Suddenly, I am not on my own, but I have the encouragement of others. I have some gym buddies. They actually go to a different gym, and are probably doing it for different reasons to me, but when I see them, we talk about gym stuff. It encourages me to keep going, not to give up.
I suggest we find some prayer buddies. People we can talk about our prayer lives with, when we get with them. People who can encourage us, spur us on, keep us going when the going gets tough. I suspect that talking about our prayer lives is harder than talking about gym stuff. Often when we do, we tend to diminish our own efforts (perhaps this is especially true of the British!), and conversations revolve around how hard prayer is, how bad we are at praying, how inconsistent we are. But how about we talk about what we do, what we find helpful, how we are learning and growing in prayer? Pushing through the pain barrier, into these deeper conversations, can nurture Christian community, and help us establish a rhythm of daily prayer.
Tags: prayer
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