You may have noticed – perhaps with relief – that I haven’t blogged for a whole week.
It was a very busy week one way and another, and I have experienced slippage.
This blog is my discipline to make me reflect on my daily morning Bible reading. If I don’t set my self the discipline of blogging about my thoughts – then I don’t have any thoughts…
Yeah – you guessed – the oldest slip in the book. I allowed a busy week to derail my pattern of prayer. I think I only managed three days of morning prayer this week. It wasn’t a total washout – but it was poor.
And guess what? I was the poorer for it – I actually felt spiritually parched.
I have reflected on this…
I used to think that there were two basic prayer personalities:
1) the person who needs a pattern of prayer – a place, a time, a ritual, a “habit” in the best sense of the word.
2) the person who is a freeform pray-er – who just does it as and when – as if the whole of life is a prayer.
And I used to think that person 2 was somehow better than person 1 – and that I was definitely person 2.
I set aside the fact that until recently my prayer life was pretty arid and it clearly wasn’t working – and persuaded myself that I was person 2.
I think the lesson has finally sunk in! I don’t think this IS an either/or situation. I have discovered that in order to fuel the “pray all the time” model of prayer – I NEED a pattern of prayer. Without the pattern of prayer I just DON’T pray all the time. I was kidding myself. If I have a pattern of prayer, then the pray-all-the-time just follows naturally. If I don’t – then it doesn’t!
So – some good has come of it – at the age of 53 I have learned a lesson I probably should have been able to grasp 30 years ago! Go me!
Kingsteignton Chapel 