A Simple Way to Pray

Deathbed confessions are fascinating to me. I have read many of them from atheists, Christians, agnostics, and even Buddhists. These confessions show the wide range of human emotion and have a way of exposing the core of the heart.

Here are a few of the more interesting ones I’ve read.

Queen Elizabeth the I - “All my possessions for a moment of time!”

Joan Crawford - “Da**it, don’t you dare ask God to help me.”

Karl Marx - “Last words are for people who haven’t said enough while they were alive.”

There is something so profound about what is on the mind of a person as they are slipping from this life and into the next. This is truly the most profound and insightful moment in a persons life, as it reveals the true thoughts and intentions of the heart. But often I consider the last words of Christians. Theses vary a great deal, but for the most part they reference going home to the Father or finally getting to see heaven. However, there is one common theme in the deathbed confessions of Christians that binds them all together, and that is the simple phrase, “I should have prayed more.” Now this is not a last-minute complaint or a regret-filled pity party, but rather it is the recognition that God is faithful through everything, but at the end of the day, we could have always prayed more. That brings me to the point of this article.

For many of us, prayer is a difficult thing. We often lack the desire, and when we do desire, we lack the time, and when we have the time, we lack the discipline. If we want to be those who can go to our deathbed in confidence that we have communed with our God to the best of our abilities, we must establish a daily rhythm of prayer. When we begin to speak about establishing rhythms and routines, most of us will begin to feel a subtle anxiety creep in, often due to the uncertainty of the difficulty of following through and forming the routine, but also due to the perceived magnitude of the task. We read about heroes of church history like George Mueller and Hudson Taylor, whose prayer lives would make a monk blush, and we feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. I want to help you to squash all of that nonsense by giving you a simple way to walk in sweet fellowship with your heavenly Father. Let’s begin with a simple layout for the day that I first encountered in The Complete Works of Matthew Henry.

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Morning

“O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.” - Psalm 5:3

Our attention is turned in this prayer rhythm to the Psalms, a collection of Holy Spirit-inspired hymns found in the center of the Bible. This book contains beautiful, powerful, frightening, and comforting words that we can use in our everyday lives to draw us closer to God. Using this first verse when we arise in the morning, we are prompted to send our voice up to God in prayer and align our day before him. Having this scripture on our minds the moment we wake up arrests our attention to heaven and gives us focus and purpose in our day. Romans 12:1 tells us to “offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” When this verse refers to preparing a sacrifice in the morning for the Lord, we as New Testament Christians should view this as preparing ourselves as that sacrifice, surrendering our day to the purposes and plan of our heavenly Father. Beginning our day in surrender is crucial in setting up our day with a Godward aim

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"Prayer is an intimate and formative time of being discipled by our Father as he leads us into the truth and teaches us moment by moment."

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Noon

“Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” - Psalm 25:5

As you approach midday, Psalm 25:5 is an excellent way to keep the mind engaged on the things of God. The psalmist pleads with the Lord that he would lead him in the truth and teach him. These two aspects are crucial in our day-to-day interactions with God in prayer. Not only are we giving our thoughts and feelings to God in prayer, but we are primarily being led and taught by God in prayer. Prayer is not simply a heavenly HR department where we lodge our complaints or a suggestion box where we leave our opinions. Prayer is an intimate and formative time of being discipled by our Father as he leads us into the truth and teaches us moment by moment. The psalmist concludes the verse with the bold statement, “for you I wait all the day long.” As you continue through your day, you patiently and expectantly wait for the Lord and his perfect leading and teaching.

Night

“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” - Psalm 4:8

The daily rhythm ends with a calm assurance that as you unburden yourself of the day, you are laying it all into the hand of a mighty and powerful God who watches over all. The psalmist is resting in the fact that his LORD, the creator and sustainer of all things, both in heaven and on earth, makes, not allows, but makes him to dwell in safety. You too can end the day with that same blessed assurance, drifting off to sleep with thoughts of a great and glorious Father who is guarding you every moment.

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Brothers and sisters, my aim is to call you to prayer. It isn’t difficult, it doesn’t have to be lengthy. Our Father wants us to walk with him day by day, communing and fellowshipping with him as we go. I pray that this aids you in doing that very thing so that when your time to die arrives, you will be able to say with Matthew Henry as he did with his dying words, “You have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men. This is mine: that a life spent in the service of God, and communion with Him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that anyone can live in this world.”