Schedule a Daily Time
We have a fixed time to wake up and sleep. We schedule everything in our life. We have a fixed time for doing everything. Hence as we have faith, we need to get a fixed time to pray to keep a balanced prayer life. Men and women of God throughout the Old and New Testaments had daily times of secret prayer with the Lord. A couple of perfect examples of this are King David and the prophet Daniel.
“Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice.” (Psalms 55:17)
“And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.” (Daniel 6:10)
Both King David and the prophet Daniel, who was a leading governor in all of Babylon, scheduled their time of prayer in the morning, at noon, and in the evening time.
These two were not the only ones who did this, the apostle Peter also prayed three times per day. In Acts 2:15 he prayed with the 120 on the day of Pentecost at “the third hour of the day” (9 am). In Acts 3:1 he went to the temple with the apostle of John at “the hour of prayer, the ninth hour” (3 pm). And in Acts 10:9 he went “up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour” (noon).
The fact that these men of God prayed three times a day is not what matters, this is simply what they decided to do with their time. The important thing to notice, however, is the consistency in which they did it. No matter how busy these men were, they continually met with God to spend time with Him in secret. [Related article: How Long/Often Should Christians Pray? (Biblical Answer)]
Jesus, of course, is another perfect example of having a daily, scheduled time with the Lord.
“Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.” (Mark 1:35)
Jesus didn’t just do this on this one occasion, rather this was a daily practice of the Son of God. The prophet Isaiah confirmed this when he prophesied about the Messiah.
“The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned.” (Isaiah 50:4)
This verse tells us that the Father would wake up Jesus “morning by morning” so that He could spend time with the Father and learn from Him.
Learning from these examples we can affirm that if we want to develop and maintain a consistent prayer life the first step is to develop a scheduled habit of spending time with God in secret prayer.
Communion with him throughout the Day
We need to have communion with Him throughout the day. This is why the scripture says things like “dwell in the secret place” (Psalms 91:1), “Abide in Me” (John 15:4), “Walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), “pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18), and “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” (Philippians 4:6).
Prayer is not only meant to be a time of scheduled and focused time with God but it is also meant to be a series of things we are constantly coming back to throughout the day. God is with us all the time so it’d be strange if we only talked to Him for only a small portion of our day, don’t you think?
Read the Word of God Daily
Reading Bible can elevate you to the world of wisdom. Bible reading itself can be a prayer. The truth is, however, reading the Bible on a daily basis is incredibly essential to experiencing a consistent prayer life.
Reading the Bible on a daily basis almost completely ends that struggle. Because the more you and I read the Word the more you and I will have our “mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2).
This is one of the reasons the Bible consistently exhorts us to meditate in the Word day and night (Joshua 1:8, Psalms 1:2) so that our thoughts will be much easier to control. Because the truth is you can only think about what you are consuming with your five physical senses.
Avoid Consuming the Trash of this World
The Bible makes it clear that anyone who loves the world is an enemy of God (James 4:4). The Bible also makes it clear that whatever we decide to immerse ourselves into we end up becoming (1 Corinthians 15:33, Matthew 12:34-35).
“For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness…But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.” (Romans 6:19-22)