Another form of prayer that falls within the category of what is called “contemplative praying” is an ancient practice called “the Daily Office”.
Though the name sounds funny to modern ears (it comes from an old Latin phrase that means “divine duty”), the Daily Office is a regimented rhythm of prayer where we pause at regular intervals throughout the day to simply breathe out very short prayers, most which are drawn from Scripture (especially the Psalms), or from classic church liturgies.
We find “fixed hour” praying in Scripture. “Seven times a day I praise You,” says Psalm 119:64. Daniel observed regimented prayer times (Daniel 6:10). In the early church, we find Peter and John going up to the temple to pray “at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour” (Acts 3:1). We find examples of pre-written “liturgical” praying in the Psalms (cf. 117, 118, 136).
Some Christians bristle against the thought that our devotional lives should in any way be “scheduled”. But believers across the ages have always adopted “rules of life” to manage their time.
Pete Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, writes, “Devout Jews in Jesus’ time prayed at morning, afternoon, and evening. Such set times of prayer were one of the Israelites’ great spiritual and cultural treasures, a practical way to keep their lives centered on loving God at all times.”
Scazzero, and others like John Mark Comer in Practicing The Way, champion the idea of believers adopting a “rule of life” to guide their use of time. “Life is lived on a spectrum between freedom and discipline, spontaneity and structure, chaos and order,” says Comer. “A rule of life provides the balance.”
I grew up in a church that was top-heavy with liturgies where I eventually found the rote praying to be stale and lifeless. In college I traded that in for a Pentecostal church, where prayers were heart-felt and extemporaneous. “It’s more real,” I told myself.
Then came the day when I found myself in a valley of depression, facing trials that were beyond me. Every time I tried to pray, my words felt stale and lifeless, and Christ seemed a million miles away. I didn’t know how to pray. It was only when I began praying aloud, even memorizing, some of the Psalms verbatim that the Lord drew near to comfort and guide me. I call on those psalms to this day.
Because a Daily Office prayer is meant to be very short, I often take just a single verse or phrase from the psalms to repeat worshipfully under my breath. For example, Psalm 18:1 says, “I love you, O Lord, my strength.” I can’t count the times when I’ve found the day getting away from me with too much work for too little time. Yet by simply sitting down for just a moment or two, closing my eyes, and whispering those words, mindfully not mechanically – I love you, O Lord, my strength – suddenly the tension subsides and I find myself in a far better frame of mind to tackle the next meeting or project.
What’s often called the “Jesus Prayer” – “Jesus, Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on me” – is a calming prayer I will often whisper under my breath at times when I want to spiritually recalibrate my heart if I’ve drifted away from the Lord in my thinking.
Sometimes at night when the witching hour comes where fears and worries start jabbing needles into my brain, I’ll simply whisper out the word, “Father…” a few times, and before long, I can sleep again.
Scripture says of God, “You will keep him in perfect peace is stayed on you” (Isaiah 26:3), which is why this form of prayer has such power. If you robotically repeat a daily-office-verse like a mantra, nothing will happen. If however you suddenly remember through it that you’re in God’s presence, peace will often cascade upon you like a shaft of sun breaking through a cloudy sky.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day – a beautiful version of one of my favorite hymns: