The paradox of worship is this: we perform these acts of worship, but they are not actually for us. We do these things for God and then we are the ones who are changed.
We offer our songs of praise, and we are the ones who are moved to joy. We offer our thanksgivings, and we are the ones who are blessed by them. We over the ancient prayers of the psalms, and we are the ones who begin to hear “the prayer of God that rises in our hears,” as my friend Father Edward Farrell says. We offer the gifts of bread and wine in the Eucharist, and we are the ones who are fed and strengthened. {page 48}
In today’s ME society, I don’t think we really get this; so many people, me included, just don’t do things for the sake of doing them anymore. If I don’t get anything immediate out of it, why would I continue doing it? Why would I fake it until I make it? Why would I get out of my comfort zone and just try it? We want perfect praise and worship in our churches, but the praise and worship isn’t about us, at least it’s not supposed to be. Our offerings of praise are for our Lord and our God. If we don’t, the Bible says that all creation will!
I have misunderstood prayer all my life, I think. It’s not that my teachers and parents didn’t try and didn’t do a good job of explaining it. They used acronyms such as ACTS – adoration, confession, thankfulness, supplication. Or something like that. But it didn’t stick. What was the purpose?!?! God KNOWS all that! God is God; why does He need our prayers? And yes, I even learned that prayer was for me. I heard that prayer was a conversation with God, to build our relationship. I get that. I can pray like that. I guess.
This liturgy of prayer – this praying at specific times each day – why would we? Right? The author provides a number of comparisons, but this one came to mind for me. Praying the hours is inconvenient (much like taking a weekly Sabbath is inconvenient); in today’s busy-ness getting together with a specific friend, or having a weekly date night with my husband may be inconvenient, but it’s so necessary. Lately these scheduled times of talking with Jason have been missing (until the last few days) but Jason has been making an effort to call me away from whatever I’m doing to just sit and talk to him. Now, it’s not at set times of day, but the principle is the same – we are MAKING time in our busy family life to just be together and talk. I think that’s the least we can do for our God – be specific and purposeful in our meetings with Him.
My prayer life has been so hit and miss. I say I’ll pray for people, and I do. I’ll ask for this and ask for that. Very often my prayers are in exasperation – “LORD, help me not throttle this child!” or “God, you gotta deal with Jason, cuz I sure can’t right now!” I don’t want my prayer life to be only supplication. I want the other aspects in there too.
The author goes on to say in another chapter that we plan everything in our lives (to some degree) but we don’t plan our prayer life. If you want something to happen, you plan it. Vacation. To do lists abound! Housekeeping even. Is prayer on your to do list? It hasn’t really been on mine. So if we are so methodical and so organized with all other aspects of our lives, why not set aside specific times of prayer?
Other reviews of this book have been critical of the content, because no specific scriptures are given in support of this but there are a number of passages that come to mind. Daniel and his friends continued their prayers even in Babylon, did they not? The author of “In Constant Prayer” also mentions that Jesus and his disciples were often praying a specific times.
I love this, from pages 54 and 55:
Sometimes it seems we have convinced ourselves that even though we are expecting God to work in mysterious ways on our behalf, our call to offer praise and worship to the One who made us is the sort of thing that can be taken care of once a week in an hour or so between the Sunday school hour and the Sunday buffet.
The call that comes to us from the tradition of the daily office, the call that comes to us from the untold millions of the faithful who went before us, suggests something else altogether. It suggests that we are to worship God as much as we are to petition God.
I believe that God does call us to be intentional in our daily lives and not just fly by the seat of your pants. I have been learning that over and over for a number of years. I don’t know why our prayer life would be any different.
Still diggin', 
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