Bringing Our Hearts into Prayer, Part 3

All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms. - Blaise Pascal (1623-62)

It is so important to have a regular prayer time everyday. This fidelity to prayer is something spiritual writers and saints write about frequently.

We want to pray. We hear the call deep in our hearts. We know, in order to really know God, we need to pray. Everyday.

But we seem to find excuses. We have so much to do. We plan to pray but we run out of hours in the day. And yet, we hear that call. We sense that nudge. God wants us to spend time with him.

Each of us needs half an hour of prayer each day, except when we are busy, then we need an hour – St. Francis de Sales

Fidelity to prayer is so important. Like an appointment we make with our doctor, we need to make an appointment with the Lord. We need to show up.

I don’t know why it is so hard for us to do this. Are we concerned about how to pray? Are we concerned about distractions or what to pray? Are we afraid of intimacy with God? Are we worried about what God might ask of us?

The only way to pray is to pray; and the way to pray well is to pray much. If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly. But the less one prays, the worse it goes. - Dom John Chapman

So true. The less one prays, the worse it gets.

Praying daily at the same time and even the same place is ideal. Even when it is a struggle. Even when our prayer is dry.

In Time for God, Jacques Philippe wrote that fidelity to our daily prayer is even more important than the quality of our prayer. So instead of worrying about the “quality of our prayer,” we make our daily appointments. We remain faithful. We approach God with trust, knowing that He loves us just the way we are.

We bring our hearts into prayer.