Which Christian discipline is most challenging for you? For many people it is maintaining a regular prayer habit. As soon as the Christian decides to pray, it is remarkable how many undone and urgent tasks spring to mind. In our busy lives it can be hard to focus on a time of quiet and prayer.
If our Lord Jesus required time alone each day with His Father, we can expect to need no less. It is only as we fix our eyes and hearts on Christ in secret that we reflect Him out in public. How to overcome the challenges, then, becomes a significant question.
Creating Physical Space
Part of the answer could be as simple as creating a physical space for prayer. Choose a spot – one that is comfortable – and make it your designated place of meeting God in prayer. Be sure you choose a place where you can keep a cup of coffee handy.
Alertness is vital. It also helps to have space for your bible, pen and paper. It might be a comfy armchair with a good side table, a seat at the kitchen table or perhaps a desk in the study – it just needs to be set apart in your mind for Holy Communion. Some can have an early morning or late evening prayer appointment sitting in their beds, but this could be a place you find hard to focus on prayer if you begin to get tired.
Creating Spiritual Space
It can be nice to have some spiritual helps on hand. Devotional books, hymnals, rosaries or memory verse cards can be picked up at nearly all religious gift stores and can help keep your prayer times fresh and interesting. Staleness in prayer is a significant hurdle to overcome.
Browse through religious gift stores for books on the lives of the saints. No one was ever used greatly by God who did not meet regularly with God. Find out what these godly forebears had to say about their own prayer habits. Pray the prayers that they prayed.
Creating Schedule Space
Your calendar is jam-packed. You have hardly a spare moment to breathe. Yet you need time in prayer if you are to succeed as a Christian in all your scheduled activities. Ask God to show you where you can carve out a sacred time to spend with Him – an unbreakable appointment, some have called it. If you don’t schedule prayer – it won’t likely happen with regularity.
One day we will not need to retreat from the world in order to commune with Christ. One day He will be the sun in the center of our city. Until then, we must undertake to discipline our lives to make time for daily prayer. Religious gift stores like The Printery House want to help you. Visit us online and choose from the many prayer helps we have to offer. We are here to strengthen the church and the best means to that end is helping Christians become strong in prayer.