Appointment with God: Lord, Teach Me to Pray! Part 1
- Leah Brix
- 23 hours ago
- 6 min read
Welcome to the first blog in our three-part series, 'Appointment with God: Lord, Teach Me to Pray!' The layout of this series will be a bit different from our usual style of storytelling, but we hope the content is worth the break from our norm.
We will be delving into the book Appointment with God by Father Michael Scanlan, which offers some practical tips on how to show up for prayer and how to make that time as fruitful as possible.
Fr. Scanlan describes our prayer time as a business appointment and makes witty references to this throughout the book. When attending a meeting, or in this case, showing up to prayer, there are three major components.
1. You commit to meet with a particular person.
2. You commit to an agreed-upon time.
3. You commit to an agreed-upon location.
I thought this was an interesting concept because it seemed too simple and obvious. Then I thought about how chaotic my prayer time can be.
Sometimes I would do it in my bed, but more often than not on my living room chair. I field questions from the toddler or lose focus when seeing last night's dishes piled in the sink. There was no real rhyme or reason to my morning prayer time.
But before we get into the “business logistics” of prayer, let’s start at the beginning. Why prayer?
Prayer is a gift for us to be able to allow our lives to be transformed by God. When we come to Him in prayer, bringing Him all of our doubts, fears, tensions, and even the wonderings of life, He takes them, and our priorities get put in the proper order. We become an integrated person in Jesus Christ.
Prayer is also insurance that we cannot be overcome! It gives us the strength and assurance to say, “I belong to God, I’m royalty! I have the first pledge of my inheritance. Regardless of what happens to me, I am in the company of the saints and the apostles, and I am destined to live forever.”
As Christians, we are called to imitate Jesus, and Jesus Himself prayed!
As the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus needed prayer less than any one of us! But he made prayer His primary thing in life. If Jesus prayed, how much more should we pray?
So how did Jesus pray? It says in the Gospel of Mark, “Rising early the next morning, He went off to a solitary place and He prayed.”
It didn’t say, “He slept in and waited and hoped that the opportunity would just happen…”
Jesus was a busy guy! During His three years of public ministry, His days were spent doing extraordinary things! While His apostles may have felt like His ministry was the most important thing, Jesus knew that prayer was the highest priority in His life. He sacrificed His sleep to rise early and find a quiet place before the demands of the day crept up on Him.
Fr. Scanlan believes that praying in the morning should be the norm for almost everyone. There may be some exceptions to this, of course, but most of us should give the first fruits of our morning to Jesus.
The disciples noticed something distinct in the way Jesus prayed. They must have noticed the power and insight that He would come back with after praying, so they boldly asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Nowhere in the scriptures does it say, “Lord, teach us to heal!” or “Lord, teach us to preach!”
In his book, "Appointment with God," Scanlan says that having no time to pray means having no faith in God. Ouch!
He points out that faith is a dependence upon God by which we believe in what we don’t see but is yet to come. Faith means our relationship to God is more important than any other relationship.
If you have a problem to solve, a difficulty to overcome, or a task to complete, wouldn’t you immediately turn to the person who could help you the most?
But if you have faith that God can do the most for you, you will come to Him first. This doesn’t mean taking off work two hours early to pray and not accomplish the responsibilities of your life. It simply means to turn to God first. It could be a quick 30-second prayer, or a few quiet minutes with God in our hearts.
In further imitating Jesus in prayer, St. Mark continues to write, “He went off…” indicating that Jesus took the initiative to find a place to pray where He would not be disturbed.
Let’s say that the Bishop shows up at your front door. You let him in. The TV is on, your daughter is practicing her trombone, your son is making obnoxious tractor noises, the dog is barking, you know, typical family life stuff.
I’m almost positive you wouldn’t just say, “Oh, don’t mind the noise!” I would imagine that you would set boundaries with your kids' interruptions, find something quiet for them to do, put the dog outside, and definitely turn off the TV. You would do everything in your power to give him your full attention!
So many people pray in the car on their way to work, or while cleaning the house, or going on a morning walk. These are excellent practices to get into! But they must be extensions of your actual prayer time. You simply can’t give God your full attention when you are doing something else, even if it is as simple as sitting in traffic or walking around the neighborhood.
A good prayer time requires a place that you can make holy. Your sacred space should become so habitual that when you go to sit down, your heart, mind, body, and soul are ready to pray because this is a special spot reserved for God alone.
I lugged an old armchair up into my bedroom, and with the closet door shut, the only thing I am able to see is my bed and the crucifix hanging on the wall in front of me. I’m not distracted by the toys in the living room or the messy kitchen. And because of the privacy of my bedroom, if one of the kids gets up before I’m done praying, it doesn’t affect me whatsoever. When I prayed downstairs, they would always come and visit with me, which is lovely! But it’s so important to give God those first few moments uninterrupted.
There is one more thing that all good business appointments need- a record of past dealings, or a set of minutes.
In regard to our prayer time, that means our past dealings with the Lord, and an explanation of how God has dealt with other men and women throughout the ages. And that set of minutes is the written Word of God —the Scriptures. They tell us who God is and get us oriented correctly for our meeting with Him.
A prayer journal is another, more personal way to call to mind past transactions in your own life. It’s important to jot down what you believe God is saying to you each day. The purpose of keeping a journal is to help you get a sense of what God is doing in your life and how He is dealing with you specifically.
We have now established WHO we are meeting in our appointment, the set TIME of our appointment, the SACRED SPACE for our appointment, and bringing along a RECORD of past dealings. We are now ready to begin our Appointment with God.
Stay tuned next week to explore the mechanics of navigating our Appointment with God using the method Jesus Himself taught us.
Until next time, your sister in Christ,
Leah
*To hear from the actual author of the book, "Appointment with God," I encourage you to listen to the interviews below! He does an excellent job of further summarizing his amazing book!
You can get your own copy of this life-changing book here!
