Prayer is the one Christian practice that almost everyone agrees they should do more of, and almost no one feels they are doing well. The disciples themselves, after watching Jesus pray for what was probably years by that point, eventually came up and asked him directly: Lord, teach us to pray (Luke 11:1, NIV).
If they needed teaching, the rest of us certainly do. The good news is that Jesus’ answer is short, almost embarrassingly accessible, and exactly the opposite of intimidating. Prayer is friendship that becomes habitual. The performance version is something else, and Jesus had no time for it.
What Jesus taught
The disciples asked for instruction, and Jesus did not give them a manual. He gave them about six lines:
Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation. (Luke 11:2–4, NIV)
A slightly longer version of the same prayer appears in Matthew 6:9–13. What is striking is what Jesus left out. There is no flowery language, no special posture required, no prerequisite religious credential. The prayer is six lines long and opens by addressing God as Father. Family language. Not court language.
Earlier in Matthew 6, Jesus warned the disciples against showy prayer. Some people, he said, think they will be heard because of their many words (Matt. 6:7, NIV). And then he said something startling that re-frames everything that comes after: your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matt. 6:8, NIV). Prayer in Jesus’ teaching is not about informing God of new information. It is about turning, attentively, toward someone who is already attentive to you.
Habit beats intensity
Most of us approach prayer in bursts. Five minutes daily for two weeks, then nothing for a month, then a guilty hour-long session the night before some crisis, then nothing again. It is a familiar cycle.
A better pattern, recommended by almost every Christian whose prayer life people end up wanting to imitate, is the boring one. Short. Daily. Unimpressive. Five minutes every morning, kept up for a year, will do more for your prayer life than one ninety-minute retreat. Paul tells the Thessalonians simply, pray continually (1 Thess. 5:17, NIV) — meaning a posture you carry into the day, not a marathon at the start of it.
If you want a place to start, pick a time, pick a chair, set the phone face-down. Five minutes. Every day. The chair matters more than people expect. Having one specific place where you go to pray makes the habit much easier to keep, because eventually the chair itself reminds you.
The Spirit helps when you have no words
There are seasons when prayer is dry. There are days when you sit down and have nothing. Paul does not pretend this is unusual:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Rom. 8:26–27, NIV)
That is one of the quietly remarkable promises in the New Testament. When you cannot find the words, the Spirit is praying with you and for you, in groans that pre-date language. Your dryness is not a barrier to God. It is the place where help is given. The implication is freeing in a way many Christians never quite let themselves believe: you cannot pray badly enough to lose access.
A simple pattern
If you want a structure to hang the five minutes on, an old and reliable one goes under the acronym ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Tell God something you love about him. Name something you would rather he not see. Name two or three things from the last day that you are genuinely grateful for. Then ask, for yourself and for others.
A few minutes a day is enough. Keep it up for thirty days and something quiet will start to shift. You will not become a saint in a month. You will notice that prayer has become, by inches, a habit your day moves around, and that the Father who knew what you needed before you asked has been there the whole time.
If you have lost it
If you used to pray and have stopped — for a season, a year, ten years — the way back is not penance. The way back is the next prayer. You do not have to atone for the missing time. The Father who taught us to call him Father did not stop being one while you were away. Sit down. Five minutes. Tomorrow morning. Begin.