A Christian's Habits: Chapter Two

The Habit of Prayer

“It is just as important that praying should become a habit with us, as breathing or eating or sleeping, or dressing in the morning.”

Introduction

My wife prays. It isn’t enough to say that she has developed the habit of prayer. It’s so deeply integrated into her life, relationships and community that it is who she is. Cheryl prays. She got her habit from her grandmother. She’s blessed our family with it. Now she has passed on her habit to the next generation.

One day, our oldest son, then a toddler, was in distress. As all boys and men are wont to do in such situations, Lucas called out for his mother. Once he found her, he explained through, his tears that he could not find a particular toy that he wanted to play with. Cheryl listened and then suggested that they pray together to find it. A few minutes after they asked God to help them, Lucas found the toy. I will never forget the look of amazement on his face. He was certain that God had heard his prayer. The two of them thanked God for helping Lucas find his toy and he went happily on his way. That was all that it took. The seed was planted. Our oldest son is now in his late twenties. The substance of his prayer has changed but not the habit. He continues to pray regularly in his young adulthood.

Prayer is an essential starting point, mid point, and ending point for our spiritual journey. Wherever you are in your spiritual life, deepening your habit of prayer will increase your ability to makegoodhappen.

So let's begin with chapter two of A Christian’s Habits; The Habit of Prayer.

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I. Prayer: The Most Vital Habit

• When do you pray?

The most vital of all the habits of a Christian is the habit of prayer. This is the test of spiritual reality and strength. The man¹ whose principles and character can be exposed to God, who loves to go to God, and who, though aware of his weakness and sin, ever rejoices to be searched through by the light of God in the fire of his presence cannot be false. The man who does not seek and bear this testing of prayer, has no such sense of his own sin, of the reality of God’s forgiveness and power and the nearness of his presence to man, as will make his word to his fellow-men of deepest effect.

“Without much solitary communion with Jesus,” says good Dr. Maclaren of Manchester, “effort for him tends to become mechanical and to lose the elevation of motive and the suppression of self which give it all its power. It is not lost time which the busiest worker, confronted with the most imperative calls for service, gives to still fellowship in secret with God. There can never be too much activity in Christian work, but there is often disproportioned activity, which is too much for the amount of time given to meditation and communion. This is one reason why there is so much sowing and so little reaping in Christian work to-day.”²

Alexander Maclaren (11 February 1826 – 5 May 1910)

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II. Habitual Prayer

• What would help you pray more?

It is just as important that praying should become a habit with us, as breathing or eating or sleeping, or dressing in the morning. If these things did not become habitual with us, life would soon break down under the burden of doing them.

But they are all made natural and almost unconscious to us by practice, so that we do them all instinctively. Prayer, of course, can never become a habit which needs no attention, for prayer is the fixing of the attention upon God; but it can become perfectly natural for us to do this, so natural that every instant our hearts will turn to God, referring all things to him and seeking his strength and peace.

Those who are not in the habit of prayer at all times are not likely to make use of prayer even in special times. In very great crises, of course, they will probably do do. Even men who pay no heed to God and renounce prayer are likely, in times of mortal peril, to pray. When the steamship Spree broke it shaft some years ago while crossing the Atlantic, with Mr. Moody on board, and the passengers realized their danger, men who had shown no interest whatever in religion joined the group around Mr. Moody who prayed. But it is the men who habitually pray who know how to pray in such emergencies. ³ If we learn from our earliest childhood to pray daily and hourly there will never come a time when we cannot turn to God with natural friendship and assurance, and tell him our wants and desires.

The Steamship Spree

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III. Prayer Takes Practice

• What is one thing you will do today to go deeper in your habit of prayer?

For prayer is just converse with God, and all conversation requires practice. If men do not talk to one another, they lose the taste and faculty of conversation, and so, also, if men do not talk with God, they will not acquire the love and power of prayer. We can make constant converse with God the habit of our lives. We are more likely to do this if we think of God as Father, as Jesus encouraged us to do. If we think of him as some strange and distant monarch, or as a vague, pervasive spirit, we shall feel no disposition to speak to him as a man would speak to his friend, but if we realize that he is our personal Father, and our inseparable Companion, we shall naturally turn to him to share our pleasure in each new joy of life, our delight in all that is beautiful, to thank him for every blessing, to seek his guidance in every perplexity and his comfort and help in every sorrow and need.

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IV. The Habit of Prayer Strengthens Us

• Who is your role model for prayer? It is helpful to find your role model in prayer. Speer mentions some of his in this chapter. Be sure to look at women known for their piety and their actions in the period as well, such as Florence Nightingale. Remember that everyone has their strengths and their flaws. But you are looking for someone, like the people mentioned here, whose prayerful life had a much larger impact on the world than most ordinary mortals. Let us know who you have chosen in the comments section below.

Such a habit, as Dr. Maclaren points out, is not inconsistent with work and energy. It is the best stimulus to work, and the great fountain of energy. It is the men of prayer, like Chinese Gordon and Stonewall Jackson who were the great soldiers. As Gordon wrote:

I believe very much in praying for others; it takes away all bitterness toward them…If a man makes an arrangement with his fellow-man, the greatest honor to him is to consider that arrangement as effectual and final. So it is the great honor to our Lord to believe his word. It is not presumption to claim the fulfillment of his promises; it is a comforting thought; indeed, it is peace, for we place our burden on him, who is both willing and able to bear it. The prayers of the patriarchs were most simple; they took God at his word, that is all.

I like much this style of prayer, and recommend it to you: to plead with Christ to look after his own members. He knew all about those members when he undertook the covenant. Surely if he bore the punishment of our sins, as he did, he is not likely to neglect the fruit of his work. Why, the fact of his not doing so would be the triumph of his foes, and would be virtual failure; and we know that he could not fail. I am delighted with the prayer; I only realized it lately-indeed a few days ago; before that it was misty. I now ask him for some way to regulate matters for my earthly members, for they also are his. I really believe we shall enter the resurrection life by such prayers, and die to the world.”

And Jackson’s biographer says of him:

“He prayed without ceasing, under fire as in the camp; but he never mistook his own impulse for a revelation of the divine will. He prayed for help to do his duty and he prayed for success. He knew that ‘More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of;’ (Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King) but he knew, also, that prayer is not always answered in the way which man would have it…Jackson’s religion entered into every action of life. No duty, however trivial, was begun without asking a blessing, or ended without giving thanks. He had long cultivated, he said, the habit of connecting the most trivial and customary acts of life with a silent prayer.”

And in the time of peace as well as in war, the man of prayer is a man of action. His prayer is work. It effects things. No one felt this more than General Samuel Chapman Armstrong,⁴ the founder of Hampton.

“Prayer,” said he, “is the greatest thing in the world. It keeps us near to God-my own prayer has been most weak, wavering, inconstant, yet has been the best thing I have ever done. I think this is universal truth-what comfort is there in any but the broadest truth?”

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V. The Earlier We Build the Habit the Better

• What is stopping you from strengthening your habit of prayer?

The earlier we can acquire the best habits, the better. As soon as children can talk, and even before, it is time to begin with them. But whether or not the habit was begun with us then, we have something to do ourselves, now, in strengthening it. We must have our set time, morning and evening, by grace at meals, by united prayer with others for the settlement and confirmation of our habit. And we need to associate the thought of prayer and to cultivate its practice with all the various experiences of life. The time that we so often spend in any other work can be profitably spent in prayer-the hours while awake at night, and the moments during the day when often we can only sit still and pray. Maurice’s wife said that she never knew her husband to wake up at night without praying.

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Add This To Your Practice of Prayer

• Do you celebrate with prayer?

The habit of prayer will be strengthened with all of us who will remember to pray after as well as before the events and experiences of life. Often we need to pray even more after some victory than before. We shall probably remember to pray after our defeat. Our humiliation and sense of need will drive us to God in shame of weakness and desire for strength. But when we succeed we often forget God, and are content with what we think we have power in ourselves to do. In truth, we have no power in ourselves to do what we ought. All our power is of God, and it is suicidal to cut ourselves off from him-the one Source of life and righteousness and power.

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Jesus Is Our Model

• Which of the passages of Jesus and prayer (see links in the paragraph below) speak to you?

No habit of Jesus’ life is more evident than his habit of prayer. It must have been begun in his earliest boyhood. It was the great comfort and strength of his life. We may not be able to make it mean to us what it meant to him, but without it we shall never find what he came to give-the life of strong, steadfast duty-doing, of love and peace and joy. Let us set about acquiring it now, and practice it every day and every hour.

1. In Speer’s day, “man” was not exclusive to a particular gender. Their usage was actually closer to the etymological origins of the word than the exclusive way we use it today. As we work through this chapter remember that his use of “man” can be inclusive as well as exclusive.

2. from The World’s Bread: Mark 6:30-44

3. see Paul in a similar situation in the Bible

4. In his autobiography Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington wrote that General Samuel C. Armstrong made the greatest impression on him at Hampton. He was "the noblest, rarest human being that it has ever been my privilege to meet. One might have removed from Hampton all the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and industries, and given the men and women there the opportunity of coming into daily contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a liberal education." Chapter III.

Booker T. Washington

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-From A Christian’s Habits by Robert E. Speer, 1911.

Other books that have helped me move forward in my spiritual journey over the last decades can be found here. Let us know in the comments below which ones you have found helpful.