quiet time 3 times a day?
Prayer is a rewarding and life enhancing conversation with God.
But at times it can be difficult. You can feel isolated from others,
running out of things to say and getting distracted. For centuries
Christians have battled to stay connected to God right through the day,
every day, 365 days a year - and it is a battle! We struggle with the
balance of "Mary" and "Martha" activity and contemplation in our daily
lives.
In this battle, quiet time and prayer several times a day have been
found to be the key. In the bible we see David praying 7 times a day
(Psalm 119:164), Daniel praying 3 times a day (Daniel 6:10), many devout Jews
praying at least 2 or 3 times a day, and Jesus praying constantly.
After Jesus' resurrection, his disciples continued to pray at certain
hours of the day (Acts 3:1 and 10:9).
Pre-written daily prayers, started centuries ago by
Monks and Nuns, can be a great help. The words already written can help you
concentrate and to know that many other people are praying along with you
can be enormously encouraging. Jesus encouraged his followers to pray
regularly and discipline is needed to accomplish that. Daily prayers help
by developing a habit.
Whether you spend quiet time in prayer with God once a day or 3 times a
day, there are 4 essential elements:
- Stopping - for example, at lunch time, before you eat lunch,
STOP to spend a little unhurried time with God, so you can trust that he
is on his throne, that he rules (and you don't), to give up control and
trust God to run his world without you.
- Centering - being attentive and open; sitting still; sitting
straight; breathing slowly, deeply, naturally; closing your eyes or
lowering them to the ground.
- Silence - sitting and waiting for the noise of the world and
your mind to be quiet, so you can hear God's small voice.
- Scripture - reading a passage, praying a Psalm, meditating on
one phrase.
Many of us spend time in front of the computer, and that is a great way
to forget and ignore God.
Today's Daily Prayer is an amazing online tool (from
www.rejesus.co.uk) written for anyone
who wants a richer
prayer life, and to stay closer to God throughout the day, using their
computer. From it you can
get ideas about different aspects of devotion and prayer, and it will give you a taste
of where a rich prayer life could lead.
Today's Daily Prayer includes all four elements mentioned above,
and every time you launch it you will get a different visual and textual
experience.
Today's Daily Prayer enables you to center yourself while at
your computer screen once, twice or three times a day, and once you are
into the rhythm of doing this, it will carry over into your non-computer
quiet time.
If you run into difficulties running the daily prayer, try downloading
the latest flash plug-in from
macromedia.
What the 'daily prayer' sections are for:
Opening Clock
The first screen shows you that it knows what day and time it is and lets
you know if you are doing morning, daytime or night prayer. It draws you
from the busyness of life and the environment of computers into a deeper
world of imagery and focus on Christ. The meditative 'Jesus Clock' could
symbolize Jesus' presence with us every second. Traditionally daily prayers have had
a different focus for each
day. Sunday focuses on Jesus' death and resurrection. Monday is the Holy
spirit and mission and so on through the week. With
Today's Daily Prayer each day of the week, Sunday to Saturday, Jesus is given an
alternative name to mirror this tradition. The large background image also
emphasizes that name.
Beginning prayer
The opening prayer is where you can focus your thoughts and attention on
prayer. It gets you into the mood. There is a different prayer for the
three different times of the day - morning, daytime and night. Each of these prayers asks you to think about your situation
or mood by asking you some questions to promote thought. It then finishes
with a prayer.
The story
In this Jesus focused daily prayer there are 31 stories taken from the four
gospels (the first four books of the New Testament) and from Acts (the next
book that talks about what happened next...). Each day of the month you will get a different story that
shows a glimpse of Jesus life. Some of these might be familiar and well
known. Others might be new to you. Each story has some thoughts or ideas
for meditation that can help you reflect more on the passage.
Prayer exercise
After the bible passage there is time given to prayer. There are a range of
different prayer exercises to try from simply sitting in silence to pouring
out the desires of your heart. Give them a try. Prayer can be much more
than sitting with your eyes closed and your hands together.
The world
The daily prayer finishes off with a suggestion of some action that can
take what you have received and give out to the world around you. These
actions tie the daily prayer together as they relate to the name of Jesus
for that day.
Daily prayer
Every time you launch the daily prayer you will get a different visual and
textual experience. If you use it in the morning you will get the morning
prayer with its readings and suggestions for that day. Later on is daytime
prayer and after 8pm you will get night prayer.
  The images and colors change second by second throughout the
year. The full screen background tint changes throughout the day.
 The tinted strip across the middle changes with the seasons
throughout the year:
The 14 faces of Jesus across the middle of the opening screen
are a clock. Reading by year, month, date, hour, minutes seconds. Here are
four examples:
More
about Prayer
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Lord's Prayer
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Today's Daily Prayer |
