I have always had a hard time with prayer. I am not sure why. I have thought and even prayed about my struggle with having a consistent prayer life. Lately though, I can testify that something has helped. I have been and plan to continue to use the Lord’s Prayer as my prayer every morning, and sometimes again in the evening. I go line by line, saying the line and then taking the idea it expresses and applying it to the various, swirling issues in my life. So I pray “hallowed be your name” and then take the time to praise the Lord and ask him to grant that his name would be hallowed in my home and life and church and work and etc. Then I go on to the next line.
So I now have a standardized approach to prayer, so to speak. Being raised protestant this practice is much more liturgical than I would have ever imagined was good for a person. Why had I never done this before? I find that most protestants I have known (and this may not be you, but just might be) are scared of a dead formalism in their lives, but they are not scared of a tossed to and fro, shallow, only sometime lifelike spontaneity. I have realized that neither is a good idea for walking with the Lord. Why does formalism have to be dead? And why can’t I sometimes go out of order and/or add additional requests and concerns on the end of my prayer time? Of course I can always pray anything at anytime to the Lord in the name of Jesus throughout the day.
A case in point: I find free improvisation in music to be a terrible thing. Free jazz suffers as music because there is no form at all. The best improvised music I have ever heard has taken place inside a form or the players in the moment of give and take created a form on the fly and ended up in the same place as having a form at the beginning. Don’t live your spiritual life as free jazz. Don’t live without any form at all just making it up as you go. Pray the Lord’s prayer, pray the Psalms, pray Paul’s prayers for the churches he wrote to, and pray some of your own prayers, but don’t ignore the wisdom of having a form of prayer to follow as a consistent daily practice. Many people from the author of the Didache to Martin Luther have suggested praying the Lord’s prayer everyday. I have found it to be good advice.
