I’m going to say something fairly obvious, but super important: If you want to develop an actual prayer life, make time in your schedule to actually pray.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to just rush through life dominated by the “tyranny of the urgent” – giving priority to whatever pressing need or perceived need happens to be in front of you. That may be a work or school task, a family or relational obligation, or even simply, “I’m tired and what I need to do right now is watch five hours of Netflix.”

When we live like that, our times of prayer usually get crammed in around the edges, during car rides and in the shower, and at the end of the day, we realise we never gave God a real block of focussed attention.

It’s like when friends say “Let’s do coffee sometime!” and then “sometime” never comes because no one ever actually put it on the calendar. You want to be friends, and you certainly meant to do coffee… but at some point, someone has to actually initiate a time and a place or else it remains just a good intention, choked out by the million other demands on your time and attention.

There’s an old story that illustrates this point very well:

A professor of philosophy stood before his class with some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks about two inches in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was full.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly and watched as the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The professor then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They chuckled and agreed that it was indeed full this time.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand filled the remaining open areas of the jar.

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar signifies your life. The rocks are the truly important things, such as family, health and relationships. If all else was lost and only the rocks remained, your life would still be meaningful. The pebbles are the other things that matter in your life, such as work or school. The sand signifies the remaining ‘small stuff’ and material possessions. If you put sand into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks or the pebbles. The same can be applied to your lives. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are truly important.

(I borrowed this version from a short article by Julie Isphording, but it appears all over the internet in various forms.)

To me, the rocks are the core things I am called to: my relationship with God, growing in the callings and gifts He has given me, stewarding my relationships, etc. My default is usually to fill my jar with pebbles and sand, and over the months, I look back and wonder where my rocks went! Designated prayer time is usually the first rock to go, if we’re being honest. In fact, sometimes I think that God set me in the house of prayer so that I would be “forced” to talk to Him more!

If having an actual prayer life is a value to you, it’s vital to schedule it like an immovable boulder in your daily routine.

Even before I joined the house of prayer, the times my relationship with God was the strongest was when I had daily times set apart to meet with Him. For a while, it was every morning before class in my university prayer chapel. At home, it was often late at night after the rest of the family was in bed. I would sit on the floor with a mug of tea and my Bible and journal, and it was the highlight of my day.

Now, my scheduled times are mostly during my sacred trust times in the prayer room. I love the accountability and community of being part of a prayer room culture corporately.

Whatever it looks like for you, I highly encourage you to put those times in your schedule and treat it like an actual appointment. Give yourself enough time to slow down and not feel rushed, where you can quiet your mind and connect with the Holy Spirit. Keep that time sacred. Worship. Read a few Bible chapters, or maybe just one. Pray through a simple prayer list. As you develop a history of meeting Him in that secret place, it will become precious to you, and you’ll look forward to it and cherish those times with Him.

(Important note: To be realistic, you probably will not keep your schedule 100% of the time–but I guarantee that if you set a goal, you will keep it MORE than you would without a goal at all. Even keeping 70% or 80% of your prayer times is way better than not even trying and keeping 0%.)

Do you have a regular prayer schedule? What times work for you? Tell me in the comments!