I am not regular. No, I do not need a shrink. And you can keep your prunes. No, not even the Activia. I mean regular in the oldest sense of the word. You see the word regular comes originally from its use among religious orders (monasteries and the like). The idea of being regular is to do things in an orderly way, according to a rule.
And in that original sense, I am not regular. I can think of very few things I do at the exact same time every day. I wish I was regular. If I ever had I wish granting genie pop of of a bottle, I would surely make myself a much more ordered, disciplined person. Yes, I would make myself regular. ( I wonder how many people have already wished for me to be regular.)
When we hear about prayer, we are often reminded that our prayer ought to be constant. God’s people are not to know a time when prayer is not appropriate. And that is certainly true. But not only should prayer be constant, it should also be regular. Not only is no time off-limits for prayer (constant), certain times are set apart for prayer each day or week (regular).
We see this often in an informal way. Prayers are often said at bedtime and before meals. But the people of God throughout time have set aside more times during the day that just these for meditation and prayer. Our current LCMS hymnal has orders for morning, noon, early evening and evening which follows the ancient Christian practice of scattering prayer throughout the day.
Are you regular? I mean in your prayer life. Do you set aside each time for meditation and prayer? Does it consist of more than let’s eat and let’s sleep prayers? If so, blessed are you. If not, realize that you are missing out on a very good thing God wants you to have.
Quite frankly, regular prayer is not something that comes naturally or easily for me. And so rather than just saying “Make it so†I want to try to help you. I am working on two video projects intended to help people, especially people like me, to make prayer much more regular. Both will be available within the next two weeks and I hope that with them you too will be a little more regular.
