Develop a deeper prayer life (Acts 1:12-14)

Prayer can be grooved into your day, into your week, into your life. Slowly at first, but sooner or later it becomes second nature. You don't even think that you're doing it.

That's how John Sloan, a semi-retired NHS Accident and Emergency consultant, describes the goal of habitual prayer. Drawing from his medical background and a short but powerful passage in Acts, John shows us how the early disciples' natural response to any challenge was to pray, and how we can develop that same instinct.

What Does "Habitual" Actually Mean?

John starts with dictionary definitions. Habitual: of the nature of a habit. Something you are, something that you do, but the key thing is you do it naturally, even without much thought.

As a medic, John knows that overcoming addiction involves at least two components. One is chemical dependence, what makes an alcoholic crave alcohol. The other is habituation. That's when an alcoholic is a few weeks down the road off all alcohol, maybe been at a rehab clinic, released, feeling great, only to meet up with an old friend. They always went to the pub together in the past, particularly in the evening. It's 6pm and sure enough, off they go again. The behaviour had been learned and grooved over a long time, and in this case, habituation proved harder to crack than dependence.

Think of habituation like cutting the corner over a nice lawn. The first times you cut the corner, you might feel a twinge of guilt, but hey, it's a long way round otherwise, and you're in a hurry. The grass stays mostly healthy. Nobody tells you off. Sooner or later, however, the grass shows where you keep going over it. After a while the grass dies and a hard mud track develops. But by then you don't even think that you're taking the shortcut. You're just so used to it.

Habitual behaviour can be unhelpful, like alcohol or damaging someone's lawn. But it can be helpful, like becoming a habitual healthy eater, a habitual exercise taker. And prayer can be grooved in the same way.

What the Disciples Did

The passage from Acts demonstrates this well. After Jesus had been taken up into heaven, the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, about a kilometre away. When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

Get the context. Jesus had just been beamed up into the heavens. Then two angels appear before the group saying Jesus is planning to come back. Not your average experience in one day. And Jesus had earlier told them not to leave Jerusalem.

What would you have done at this point? Would you have got around your friends to tell them the amazing things you'd seen and heard? Would you have had long discussions about what it all meant? Would you have started a new movement and looked for people to join you?

The fact is that this band of around twenty people had been trained by Jesus to face any challenge with believing prayer. No food? Let's pray. Sick person? Let's pray. Dead person? Let's pray.

We may think that prayer is just a small event where we recite a few words like a mystical incantation. It might last only a minute, or it might last a few minutes. But here we see people habituated to prayer. It was their natural go-to place.

How to Develop Habitual Prayer

So how and where could you develop habitual prayer? John shares what works for him.

He used to pray sitting in a chair every morning. It was his quiet time. He'd shut off from his phone and other things going on, read scripture and pray. That's a great habit to get into in the morning.

But actually, he found he can pray better, more naturally, longer for all the things rattling around in his head, things tugging at his heart, when he goes for a walk with his little dog in the woods. He starts walking and starts praying. The two are now indelibly linked for him. The habit is grooved, like that track over the grass.

John encourages us to find our most comfortable place at the best time of day for us. It could be first thing in the day. For him, it's whenever he walks, so it could be three times: morning, lunchtime, evening. As soon as he starts walking, he starts praying.

It could be last thing in the day. You might get yourself warm in bed and open your Bible, read a passage, and pray there. You might want to sit or stand, walk, or listen to some background music. There, in that comfortable place for you, form the habit of talking to your heavenly Father.

It's a great habit to develop: habitual prayer.

Conversation Street

Does "habitual" sound like a negative word?

Claire noted that habitual has become associated with negative connotations. But she likes that we can turn the negative into the positive. Anything that is a habit is habitual. And that's how God works too, turning the negative into the positive.

What is prayer, really?

Claire said prayer has to be a daily thing. It's just talking. It's demystifying what prayer is. It's not some sort of formal recitation. It's just talking like we talk to each other, with our heavenly Father who is as real as the person in front of us, but we can't physically see him.

Matt agreed that sometimes we've overcomplicated prayer. It's just having a conversation with God from wherever you are, from your heart. And a conversation is always two-way. God wants to hear from us, but he also wants to communicate back.

Do Christians feel guilty about their prayer life?

Matt asked Claire if she'd ever felt bad about her prayer life, thinking she's just not praying enough.

Claire admitted it's up and down. There have been times when she's sat in a chair and prayed for an hour, maybe sung songs to God, read the Bible as part of that process. She doesn't think you can take the Bible away from prayer; they're very interlinked. Currently she's reading a Psalm a day, starting from Psalm one on January the first.

She finds praying from the Bible really helpful. The book of Ephesians has some crackers. When she's not known what to pray, she's turned to a prayer in the Bible and prayed those.

On guilt, Claire shared a distinction that's always helped her: condemnation turns us away from God, but conviction from the Holy Spirit turns us towards God. She doesn't have to spend five hours getting ready to pray. She can just say, "Here I am, God. You accept me as I am, you know my weaknesses, you love me, you want to speak with me, you want to hear what I've got to say."

Does God care about the small stuff?

Claire shared a funny story. They couldn't find an iPad and a Chromebook in their house. After a day and a half of looking, she said to her husband John, "We just need to pray about it." He was a bit hesitant at first, thinking they can't talk to God about this. But Claire was fed up of looking. So they prayed, and literally within half an hour they had found both of them. John said he'd looked there before and it wasn't there. Claire's response: well, there we go. It was God, because God loves us. He loves the silly little things as well as the big things.

Matt shared a memory from before he was a Christian. He was watching American football with a guy called Birdie, who just prayed, "Lord, help our team." Matt thought that was bizarre. You can't pray for things like that, surely? Birdie turned around and said, "The God I worship is interested in the little things. This is just one of those things I like to talk to God about."

That stuck with Matt. The ability to talk to God about the seemingly inconsequential is one of the things he's noticed with Christians who enjoy their relationship with God. It's not about a big prayer list and a formula. It's that consistent conversation going on all the time.

How long does it take to build a habit?

Claire mentioned hearing it takes about 40 days to build a habit. Initially it can feel hard, a discipline. But the more you do it, the more you practice it. She referenced the old classic "Practicing the Presence of God." It's a practice. And it's not ever something you'll perfect because there will be different seasons in your life where it's challenging.

But when we say "Here I am, God," then he is there like that. That's been her experience time and again.

What are different ways to pray?

Claire shared that she prays in tongues, a language given by God that she hasn't learned and doesn't understand, but knows God is using her to pray through it. That's been really helpful when she's got no words left.

Matt shared that he likes to journal, grabbing a notebook and pen, getting things out on paper, praying things out. He also finds templates helpful, like Jesus' prayer (the Lord's Prayer), not word for word but as a structure to approach prayer when you don't know what to pray.

Both agreed that praying with other people is really helpful. There's a sense of accountability, and you can learn so much from how other people pray. Not copying them, but being inspired and spurred on.

What about when prayers aren't answered?

Claire shared that they've been going through a very difficult scenario for 11 or 12 years now. All you can come back to is: we keep praying, we keep doing the next thing to do. Whether we see the breakthrough we want isn't really the point. The point is that we're talking to God about it, and we trust God for whatever outcome. He's with us, interested in us, loves us.

Matt agreed there are things you'll pray for years, and other things you'll pray for seconds. It's just part of the nature of your walk with God. There is a thing called timing when it comes to prayer.

Claire added that sometimes you keep having to come back to answered prayers. She's got stories of praying for people and them getting healed. But she doesn't really understand why a fabulous friend died of cancer. We're here, God loves us, God loves them. It's part of the mystery.

Matt loves that as Christians, when we don't know the answers, we can go to God and say, "God, I don't get it. But I'm gonna trust that you are still good."

Your Next Step This Week

Here are practical ways to respond to this message:

1. Find your place and time — John encourages us to find our most comfortable place at the best time of day for us. It could be a chair in the morning, a walk at lunchtime, or warm in bed at night. Wherever works for you.

2. Try the 15:30 habit — Matt shared a challenge: do prayer for 15 minutes a day for 30 consecutive days. The key word is consecutive. If you miss a day, start counting again. It's a great way to build the habit.

3. Demystify prayer — It's just talking to your heavenly Father. You don't need qualifications, you don't need to pray in King James English, you don't need a formula. Just start a conversation.

4. Pray from the Bible — Claire finds praying from the Psalms or Ephesians helpful when she doesn't know what to pray. The prayers are already there; you can make them your own.

5. Pray with others — Praying with others builds accountability and inspiration.

Groove the Habit

John closes with this encouragement: remember that in that comfortable place for you, form the habit of talking to your heavenly Father. It's a great habit to develop: habitual prayer.

The early disciples had been trained by Jesus to face any challenge with believing prayer. It was their natural go-to place. That same habit is available to us. Slowly at first, but sooner or later it becomes second nature. You don't even think that you're doing it.

I pray that it would come to pass for you too.