Daily Prayer

Why Daily Prayer?

Our days and weeks are rushed. Important things need to get done. Worries and concerns keep our minds occupied. And sometimes we simply waste time with worthless stuff. Today we're in church, and before we know it another week is past.

What can easily happen in this rush is that Jesus and his Word don’t find any time in our days and weeks. Sunday is often it for most of us as far as God’s Word and prayer are concerned. This is sad because God wants to speak to us in his Word every day to instruct, comfort, and strengthen us in our many daily struggles against sin, the world, and the devil. He wants us to rely on him ever more fully for our every need despite our sometimes hard experiences. And God also wants us to speak to him in thanksgiving and prayer for others and for ourselves. Remember, God is our dear Father; he's our Brother; and he's our Comforter – how often do you want your Father and Brother to speak to you? Just once a week, for one brief hour?

But ...

We all can think of at least two reasons why we think we just can’t pray at least once every day: The first, we don’t have time. Indeed, if we don’t make time for prayer then we won’t. Think of Christians as athletes: athletes have to observe a set schedule to get all their training in. They can’t be athletes if they don’t want to structure their time accordingly. So it is with us Christians, we need to set time apart (on Sunday and during the week) so that God can speak to us through the bible lest our faith become worn down by daily life (see 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; 2 Timothy 2:4-5).

The other reason against praying on a regular basis at home: You might think you’ve got to understand everything you read right away; or that you have to say long fancy prayers. The truth is, you don't, in both cases. We all come before God trusting, not in our abilities, but only in Christ. Understanding God’s Word grows out of patiently and expectantly hearing and reading it again and again, alone at home and in community with fellow Christians at church. In every case, it is the Spirit who grants true understanding through God’s Word itself. And our prayer life is enriched by the very words of Scripture, the Psalms in particular. And we can simply trust that the best prayer is that prayer God himself taught his disciples to pray: “Our Father ...”

How to Pray Daily -- the Benefit of Simple Orders

Experience teaches that if we don’t have a simple set order for our devotion time we soon run out of “creative” ideas, busy and tired as we usually are. And this is actually a good thing, because in church it’s not our creativity that counts but God’s. And God has been at work through the same word in law and gospel for the past millennia, creating repentance and faith when and where it pleases him. Using a simple set order is like dancing: it’s easy to learn, and when we don’t have to count our steps anymore, then we’re really dancing.

A Lesson from History

Christians from the very first times have daily set apart time for scripture and prayer, some once a day, some two or more times, as their daily duties permitted. And they have usually also followed some simple order for their prayers. They did this to remind themselves that every hour of the day is made holy by the life that God’s Son spent as a man on earth, no matter how terrible or godless it might seem to us. There is no time of the day that would be unknown to our God, not the early morning, not the noon hour, not the late night – all our times are in God’s hands, as we read in Psalm 31:15. At no time during our long days are we alone.

The Meaning of the Various Times for Prayer

Early morning prayer gives us the opportunity to give thanks to God for the new day he gives us; to ask him to protect and guide us as we go about our duties in our daily vocations in the home and at school and work; and to look forward to the Day without end, our eternity with God in heaven. Prayer at noon reminds us of the hours of agony Christ suffered around noon for us on the cross on the first Good Friday. Prayer at evening time allows us to give thanks to God for preserving us in the faith; to confess our sins to him and to one another; and to commend ourselves to his safekeeping in the dark hours of the night ahead and in our death.

At all these times Jesus wants to speak to us in his holy Word, and also through the Catechism. Let’s take him up on his offer and promise to be among those who are gathered around his Word. Let’s spend some time with our Lord and God in Word and prayer.

For it is also by explicit, conscious prayer that we hallow God's name among us by leading a holy life according to his holy Word. Daily serving God according to his will, the Ten Commandments, does have this concrete, bodily dimension. This is what daily prayer teaches us as well. Luther urged his people to take the Second Commandment no less seriously than, say, the Fourth.

Taking the First Practical Steps

Obviously, there's a variety of ways how you can order your daily prayers; you may do so in all Christian freedom. However, using similar external forms does express the spiritual fellowship we enjoy with those of the same household of faith. Therefore feel free to use the simple orders that were prepared by the Commission on Worship of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, our church body, and are now included in our new official hymnal, the Lutheran Service Book.

Simply begin by using the few lessons given on the sheets. The psalm of the previous Sunday is your psalm for the week. Go through the Small Catechism one chief part a day and be led by it through the week, from one Lord's Day to the next. If you don’t have a Lutheran hymnal at home, you can purchase our new hymnal directly from its publisher, Concordia Publishing House.

A schedule for bible readings for the entire year, beginning on Ash Wednesday, is also available.

May God bless you as you let His blessed Word dwell richly among you (Colossians 3:16).