Bookending each day... and how beneficial it is

For the past many months, I had been neglecting my prayer life. I was reading the Bible daily late at night before falling asleep. I would try to pray after that, but I was often so tired it would be a tiny prayer of less than a minute. This was not good for me. 

Notice, it's not good FOR ME. I'm not saying this is bad for God - it's bad for me. As has been mentioned previously, it is we who are improved by praying and knowing God. God is not improved by knowing us!

In the morning, I would be immediately swept up into a busy day, so I didn't feel I would be able to regularly make a significant chunk of time to read the Bible and pray at that time of day (which together could take a while).

During the time I recognized this as a problem but wasn't sure how to solve it, I was invited to join a friend's weekend prayer event where I signed up for a one-off prayer slot for 1 hour. I signed up for 5am, that way I could ensure it would be done before I was needed by my family for the busy morning. I realized, after praying for an hour, how much I myself had benefited spiritually (even though my prayers were specifically for other people and situations that concerned this particular prayer vigil).

Then I realized after that experience, I don't HAVE to do both the Bible reading and the prayer all in one go. 

I don't have to read the Bible and then immediately pray. Yes, it's fine to do it that way, but I don't need to become legalistic and make it be the only way of doing it.

Instead, I decided to start the day by praying - since this was the thing I wasn't finding time for in the evenings. To make it more manageable I started with 20 minutes of prayer. And hopefully later extend it further daily.

I would still read the Bible in the evenings before sleeping.

This is working out really well! I love how the days are bookended with prayer and Bible reading. I have written before how prayer and Bible reading is our spiritual food, and that we shouldn't have long periods without it, just as we wouldn't go for days without physical food.  Likewise, starting the day with prayer and ending with Bible reading works out well for me - there's not a long gap of 24 hours anymore. I wouldn't eat a physical meal only once every 24 hours after all! This is working out really well for me.

Of course, each person needs to do what works for them. Every individual is unique, their work schedule is different, and how they read the Bible and pray is different too. I'm just describing what finally worked for me. For some people, reading the Bible and praying once every 24 hours is fine - it just didn't work out well for me personally, but each person different. Switching to praying at the start and reading the Bible at the end of the day worked better for me.

When I changed to my new setup, it made me realize how often Jesus was praying. As mentioned before, if one so strong as Him needed to pray, how much more do we, who are mere humans, need to pray?

In fact, this process made me realize how much I need God and Jesus. I would not go back to the minimal amount of prayer I was doing before - because I need to pray.

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