Prayer as a Daily Discipline

Constant, conscious communion is certainly key to an all-day-long conversation with God; but is there not also a place – and time – to put the day’s events aside and look intently into the Lord’s eyes…undistracted?

Jesus seemed to think so.  He didn’t legalistically command a “quiet time” with God, but He taught it to His disciples in the most powerful way – by example. Just quickly look at one Gospel:
   Luke 4:42  “At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place…”
   Luke 5:16  “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
   Luke 6:12  “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray…”
   Luke 9:18  “Once when Jesus was praying in private…”
   Luke 9:28  “…(he) went up onto a mountain to pray.
   Luke 11:1  “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place…”
   Luke 22:39  “Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives…”

“As usual…,” the pattern is clear.

The Lord’s walk with the Father through the day was founded on a deeper, more focused conversation with Him at some point in the day.  But how did He find the time?  He was so busy with people and meetings that, at one point, His family came, possibly to intervene and rescue Him from the stress (Luke 8:19). Jesus had time for things He knew to be essential to life, things like breathing and praying.

Where will we “find time” for the essentials?  Maybe the radio doesn’t need to play for the whole commute to the office.  Maybe 10:30 to bed, rather than 11, is the answer when adding half an hour to the morning seems so daunting.

John R.W. Stott said it well when he wrote,
“Generation of Christians have discovered that the principal way (to know God more intimately) is to wait upon him every day in a time of Bible reading and prayer.  This is an indispensable necessity for the Christian who wants to make progress.  We are all busy nowadays, but we must somehow rearrange our priorities in order to make time for it.  It will mean rigorous self-discipline, but grant this, together with a legible Bible and an alarm clock that works, we are well on the road to victory.”