Jesus frequently separated himself from the demands around him, and went off to a quiet place to pray. Sometimes he went alone, and sometimes with his friends. Through the centuries, the church and its saints have imitated this habit of Jesus. When we have done this frequently, and with hearts open to God, we have been greatly blessed by the richness and blessing of such a prayer life.
The habit of morning and evening prayer is formative for the human spirit, as we are blessed by this holy connection to our Creator. Such a prayer helps us grow and mature as disciples of Christ. Such prayer guides us through our days, and forms the spiritual fruit our lives bear.
Seven different themes in this work connect contemporary disciples with major emphases of the Old and New Testaments. This week of themes includes: “The Days of Creation;” “The Covenants of God;” “The Ten Commandments;” “The Gospel of Jesus Christ;” “The ‘I Am …’ Sayings;” “The Beatitudes;” and “The Fruit of the Spirit.” The themes give shape to the prayers and other elements of worship in this work.
It is surprising how the Holy Spirit can work through the fixed elements of morning and evening prayer. Sometimes, a phrase or word that has been there all the time, just shines out at us. We see it and hear it as if for the first time, and it is just the thing we needed to see and hear that day. Of course, there is even more freedom for the Spirit to work through the scriptures the worshiper chooses to read, and that person’s own spontaneous prayers each morning and each evening.
A Feast of Weeks also presents the disciples of Christ with a balance of repetition and variety. Consider, for example, how the repetition of the greeting and closing prayer every weekday, quickly turns them into old friends. At the same time, different hymns, psalms, and prayers provide fresh experiences to take the disciple to unexplored ideas and experiences with God.
The same balance is maintained in the style of prayer. Some prayers are fixed and repeated daily or weekly. Other prayers are used only on specific days. Some prayers are provided to fit the theme, and one we have memorized is timeless – the Lord’s Prayer. Still other prayers arise spontaneously from the disciple or disciples doing the praying.
The seven-day week, given to us in God's creation, provides another sort of balance. Six days have the same pattern for prayer, but the seventh day, the Lord's Day for Christians, shifts the pattern to mark its difference as the day the Lord rose from the grave.
Hymn numbers listed throughout this work refer to The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, Tennessee: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), and are chosen to reinforce the characteristics mentioned above. The singing of these hymns and choruses may be done out loud, or silently in one's heart. God hears either way. Those singing can provide accompaniment with their own musical instruments, or by accessing one of the various hymn-sites on the internet. To avoid struggling to sing unfamiliar hymns or choruses, just read the words for their meaning.
The format for morning and evening prayer presented below can be completed in about fifteen minutes. But it is suggested that a pause follow each prayer, scripture reading, hymn or affirmation. Use this pause to reflect on what you just read or sang, and even more, use this pause to listen to whatever God might want to say to you through the words of the prayer, reading or scripture. How long you pause is totally up to you and God, and this will determine whether this time you spend with God will last fifteen minutes, an hour or more.
You may want to light a candle (scented?) as you begin your prayer time, and then extinguish it as you close. Some people also like the informality of enjoying a cup of coffee or hot tea, or maybe a glass of cold lemonade or iced tea as they spend this time with God. Using the same place for this prayer time adds other benefits, such as lessening distractions. Some people find it meaningful to wear certain items of clothing, such as a prayer shawl or a covering for their head. Some people will remain seated for the entire prayer time. Others will choose to stand for singing or for an affirmation of faith. Prayers can be prayed while seated, kneeling or standing, with hands folded or raised to heaven. Some people will do all their morning and evening prayer alone, and some will prefer to do it in the company of family or friends. This is a time for you and God to enjoy together. So, do whatever adds to the enjoyment and meaning of these moments with your Creator.
If you are doing morning and evening prayer with other people; then the crosses ( ) on the left margin will be helpful to you. Two people can take turns reading prayers and other acts of liturgy, using each cross to indicate where the reading shifts to the other person. Groups with more than two people can use the crosses in the same way, changing readers each time they come to a cross.
One or more scripture references begin each morning or evening of prayer. These scripture passages are the basis for that morning’s or evening’s theme. You might want to read these for your scripture lesson on your first trip through this week of weeks, but after that reading other scripture passages might be preferable. Choose one of the sixty-six books in our biblical library, or read through the whole Bible, as your chosen scripture lesson. You could also read Bible passages dealing with a particular topic, person or word (a concordance can help you with this). Daily lectionaries, available in print and on the Internet, are also very good guides for devotional reading.
A Personal Testimony
Let me share a word about how morning and evening prayer saved me (the author) from a devastating situation. The bishop had appointed me to serve as the solo pastor of a thousand-member congregation. The experts, who study these things, report that the average pastor is able to properly care for about two hundred and fifty parishioners. I was immediately in well over my head. I worked as hard and as fast as I could, averaging sixty-hour work weeks every week. I prioritized everything, and eliminated less important pastoral tasks. I handed off as many tasks as possible to volunteers and part-time lay employees from the congregation. I began logging my days and nights in fifteen minute segments, searching for any place where I was wasting a few moments of precious time and looking for a way to catch up on work not being completed.
It didn’t take long before I realized that I was in big trouble, and something had to change. I prayed for God’s leadership in the work I was doing, to show me what to do and what to stop doing. I had read about pastoral burn-out, but I had never thought I would experience it myself. When I began thinking about stepping out of the ministry, either temporarily or permanently, I finally admitted I was deep into burn-out.
When God answered my desperate prayers for help, I was totally surprised, as is often the case with God, with the answer I received. God did not approve my leaving the ministry. God did not provide me with a list of ministerial tasks to stop doing. God added to my work-load!
What I heard was God telling me to use one hour every morning for prayer, one day every month for a prayer retreat, and one week every year for a longer prayer retreat. That was a huge addition to a pastor already drowning in too much work. But I had been a pastor long enough to witness God working quite a number of miracles in peoples’ lives. I believed in God’s leadership, and trusted in God’s loving guidance. So I took a leap of faith, and implemented the additional work load God had given me.
That is when I began practicing daily morning prayer, as well as taking prayer retreats as God had told me to do. I still do not understand how God’s plan for my ministry worked, but it did. The extra time for prayer was no burden at all. In fact, I quickly began looking forward to the time I was spending alone with God. Emotionally, it was similar to what I felt when I began falling in love with my wife. It was no burden at all, and I wanted more, not less, time for prayer. My mood changed. My attitude changed. My life changed.
My ministerial work load did not change, but it began to feel different. I felt different. I was stronger, and more confident. The feeling of burn-out disappeared. I did not leave the ministry, not even temporarily. Somehow the work was getting done, and I even had more time with my wife and family. I identified with Joshua, when the sun stood still as Israel battled their enemies (Joshua 10:12-13). Nobody else seemed to notice the sun standing still while I did battle with my work-load, but I sure noticed the difference produced by spending an hour every day with God. I don’t know if God messes with the orbits of celestial bodies, but God certainly works miracles for the children of God. And there is a reason that so many of the saints of the church have practiced morning and evening prayer for centuries. It makes a real difference in our lives.
For my morning prayer, and eventually evening prayer too, I turned to the resources provided by various denominations of the church. Finding some of these to be a bit dusty, I substituted some of the greatest prayers from the church’s saints. As you can imagine, a lot of these have been written over the last two thousand years. I simply chose the ones that challenged me the most. Soon I was so excited by my experience with God in morning and evening prayer, I felt I had to share it with others who were also dealing with their own kinds of burn-out and the overwhelming loads that life can pile onto us. Getting my work published as a book seemed to a good way to share. But publishers shy from publishing work that did not originate with the author. So I began substituting my own humble prayers for those produced by the saints of the church. Most are my words. Yet I am firmly convinced that the best are not my own, but from the God to whom these prayers are directed. Today my prayer is that these prayers challenge you, and are useful to you in your own communing with God, in the morning, evening, or whenever.
Robert D. Ingram
