Are you satisfied with your prayer life? Do you enjoy prayer? Wesley regularly asked this question. If you’re like me, the answer on most days has been, “No.” For most of my Christian life, prayer has been a struggle. I have struggled with the discipline of it, feeling distracted, and even feeling bored. My prayer life has been based too much on my feelings, and I’ve always felt like I fall desperately short of the instruction to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17).
As a pastor, I’ve often felt guilty about my struggle with prayer, since prayer is so important to my ministry (Acts 6:4). I don’t want to sin against the Lord by failing to pray or failing to pray for those under my care (1 Sam. 12:23). But I’ve learned that I am not alone. As I’ve been vulnerable about my struggle, other pastors and church leaders, some who are much older than me, have acknowledged the same challenge.
In Praying with the Church, Scot McKnight reports, “A new study about the prayer life of pastors, who are supposed to be our leaders in prayer, shows that about half of them are dissatisfied with their prayer lives. In fact, only nine percent of younger pastors are satisfied with their times of prayer.”
For most of my Christian life, I’ve been in the nine percent. But over the last year, by the grace of God, that has begun to change. Although I am still very much a student in Christ’s school of prayer, I have discovered a biblical and ancient method of prayer that has transformed my prayer life. I am beginning to look forward to prayer and feel closer to the Lord throughout the day.
Spontaneous and Fixed-Hour Praying
The Bible instructs us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). We are to cultivate a prayerful attitude in all of life, and call upon God in every circumstance. We can talk to God at any time as our faithful friend and Heavenly Father. G. K. Chesterton said,
You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
There is no replacement for these kinds of spontaneous prayers that cultivate our friendship with God and dependence on his grace in the ups and downs of life. But as great as this sounds, it’s hard to actualize unless it’s rooted in some fixed habits of prayer that provide consistency and structure to our prayer life.
There is no replacement for spontaneous prayers, but they need to be rooted in some fixed habits of prayer.
God’s people have always also stopped at fixed hours throughout the day to praise and petition the Lord as one. What has revolutionized my prayer life is discovering the ancient habit of fixed-hour prayer, also called the daily office, which involves sacred rhythms of prayer that sanctify the whole day to God and unite our voices with the communion of saints throughout the world. For many Christians who struggle to have a consistent and meaningful prayer life, the daily office has become a transformative spiritual discipline.
Robert Benson, in his book In Constant Prayer, writes of being discouraged with prayer for around 40 years until he discovered the daily office. He was raised in a tradition that exclusively said spontaneous prayers, but he couldn’t break through in prayer until he began fixed-hour prayer (“the office”):
The prayer of the office is not just for God’s chosen few, and it is not only for God’s special friends. It is prayer for the rest of us. It always has been. For thousands of years, the daily office has been a primary way to hold ourselves in closer communion with the One who made us. It is a way to sanctify our days and our hours, our work and our love, our very life itself.
McKnight had a similar experience, and writes, “What may surprise some is that nearly everyone who practices a sacred rhythm of praying finds it life-shaping.”
The Prayer Hours in Scripture and Church History
What convinced me to commit myself completely to fixed-hour praying was learning about its history in the Old Testament, New Testament, and early church. I realized that the daily office is what Daniel, David, the Jews, Jesus, his apostles, and the church throughout history have always prayed.
The daily office is what Daniel, David, the Jews, Jesus, his apostles, and the church throughout history have always prayed.
In the Old Testament, Daniel observed three prayer hours, even when the king forbade it: “He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God” (Daniel 6:10). David also marked at least three prayer hours, which sustained him through the difficult seasons of life: “Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice” (Psalm 55:17). The Psalmist prayed many times throughout the day: “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules” (Psalm 119:164). By the time of Christ, the Jews offered common prayer at the third hour, around 9 AM; the sixth hour, around noon; and the ninth hour, around 3 PM. Jesus would have participated from childhood in this rhythm of morning, midday, and evening prayer.
In the New Testament, the church continued to observe the Jewish prayer hours. In fact, they were gathered for nine o’clock prayer, “the third hour of the day,” when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost (Acts 2:15). Peter and John healed the lame beggar on their way to the temple “at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour” (Acts 3:1). “Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray” (Acts 10:9). Under the law, the priests offered morning and evening sacrifices (Ex 29:38–39; Num 28:2–8); under the gospel, the whole church, a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9), continually offered the sacrifice of prayer with praise and thanksgiving (Heb. 13:15).
In the New Testament, the church continued to observe the Jewish prayer hours.
The early church followed the apostles’ example of praying the hours. In the late first or early second century, the Didache instructed Christians to say the Lord’s Prayer “thrice a day” (8), undoubtedly at the accustomed hours. In the early third century, the Apostolic Tradition by Hippolytus instructed Christians to pray “on rising, at the lighting of the evening lamp, at bedtime, at midnight,” as well as “the third, sixth, and ninth hours of the day, being hours associated with Christ’s Passion.” The church also fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays, the days when Christ was betrayed and crucified.
Appointed Prayers, Old and New
The hours of prayer have always included appointed prayers for all God’s people to say together. These prayers were not a replacement for spontaneous prayers, but they have always been an integral part of a robust prayer life. The Jews prayed the Shema, the Ten Commandments, and a series of petitions called the Amidah, as well as selections from Israel’s prayer book—the Book of Psalms.
When Jesus prefaced the Lord’s Prayer by saying, “When you pray, say [this]” (Luke 11:2), his disciples would have understood him to at least mean, “When you say your morning, midday, and evening prayers, recite this as well.” The Christian church replaced recitation of the Shema, Israel’s Creed, with the Apostles’ Creed: “be daily saying it to yourselves; before you sleep, before you go forth, arm you with your Creed” (Augustine, Sermon to the Catechumens on the Creed, 1). Christians also regularly said or sung the prayers of Zechariah (Luke 1:68–79), Mary (Luke 1:46–55), and Simeon (Luke 2:29–32).
To bring together the appointed prayers in one place, with a cycle of selected Psalms, the church produced beautiful prayer books. In the Anglican tradition, the Book of Common Prayer includes services for morning and evening prayer, which were intended for corporate use (as in Acts 3:1), but could also be prayed in private (as in Acts 10:9). John Wesley included these offices in the Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America.
Getting Started
If you want to join the Church throughout the world in the ancient practice of fixed-hour praying, I recommend committing, right away, to three major prayer hours: morning prayer (also called lauds, from the Latin for “praise”), midday prayer, and evening prayer (also called vespers, from the Latin for “evening”). Then, there’s the option of night prayer or bedtime prayer (also called compline, from the Latin for “complete”).
For many Christians who struggle to have a consistent and meaningful prayer life, the daily office has become a transformative spiritual discipline.
Connect these prayer times with existing habits or routines. For example, pray the morning office privately when you rise or responsively at breakfast with your family. Pray the midday office privately when you have a break from work or responsively at lunch with your family or Christian coworkers. Pray the evening office privately when you get home from work or with your family after dinner.
At first, you can start simple. Every morning and evening, say the Lord’s Prayer, Apostles’ Creed, and a Psalm, then add your own prayers for your family, church, and world. At midday, you can omit the Creed.
What has helped me the most is using a prayer book and keeping it wherever I intend to pray. Recently, I have kept a prayer book, Bible, catechism, and hymnal or chorus book on my table at all times, right in front of my place setting. My little boy, Adam, is already memorizing the responses. Sometimes I also use my own abridged version of the Book of Common Prayer, available on our website (see below).
The simplest prayer book to start with is the Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle. There are three volumes—springtime prayers, summertime prayers, and prayers for autumn and wintertime. All of the prayers and readings are spelled out, so you don’t have to flip around, as in the BCP.
A Sample Daily Office
For an abridged version of the BCP, follow these links:
For other online and print recommendations, see “Resources for Daily Prayer.”
