How Prayer is Like Productivity

There’s a lot of talk around a new version of OmniFocus that is coming out soon.  If you’re not familiar, OmniFocus is a productivity app that is quite popular with enthusiasts of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.  Because of its following online, OF will likely get a hero’s welcome when it finally is released.

People will download it.  About a week later, many of those same folks will stop using it.  Life will have gotten busy.  The shine will have worn off. Old habits will creep back in.  That powerful new productivity app will feel somehow, “ordinary”.

Folks will realize that, at the end of the day, no app can do the work for you.  You are the one who has to do the work. 

How similar is this to prayer? Let me share a story to answer that from my own life. 

A visit to my spiritual director a few months ago had me complaining about one thing or another.  The man is an absolute saint for putting up with me.  I don’t know how he does it.  When I came up for air and stopped talking, he calmly said, “and have you been praying about this?”

Right... praying about it, that would have helped. 

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“Pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you.”

— St. Ignatius of Loyola

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What he was really saying is this, “you can’t expect God to step in and make your problems go away if you’re not even willing to do the slightest bit of work”.

I’ve heard that mantra many times in the months since then, you have to do the work, you have to do the work, you have to do the work.

In this way, productivity and prayer are very similar.  There is one significant difference that is probably obvious by now.  With productivity, it’s all about you and your colleagues.  When it comes to prayer, God is in charge.  He’s doing the heavy lifting.  His grace is mysterious and can be hard to figure out.  His ways, as the passage says, are not always our ways. 

Still, you’ve got to do the work.

7 Sincere Ways to End Your Prayers

We’ve talked about easy ways to begin your prayers. (here) But what should you do at the end of your time of prayer?

Think about it another way- you’re at dinner with someone very important. After you pay the bill, you wouldn’t walk out of the restaurant without saying anything. Rather, you would be sure to thank the other person, look him in the eye and leave things on a good note.

It’s no different with prayer.

After you’ve spent 10,20 or even 30 minutes in prayer, how you “leave things” with God is worth some thought. The following are seven ways that you could conclude your prayer:

1. With a formal prayer. This could be as simple as the Our Father or a prayer from a saint that is meaningful to you.

2. With a quote or mantra. Do you have a saying that resonates with you? Is there a line that moves your spirit?

3. With the sign of the cross. Enough said here- you can never go wrong with the sign of the cross.

4. In silence. While Mother Teresa said that at least half of our time (in prayer) should be spent in silence, there’s nothing like concluding your time with the Lord in silence.

5. By looking at an icon. You might place an icon in your prayer spot and conclude your prayer by gazing at the icon- taking a long, meaningful look at its deeper message.

6. By writing. In your journal, you might conclude your time of prayer by writing down something similar each day. I like to do this and it brings a sense of closure and a “sending off” to the day.

7. By invoking a saint. I will often conclude my prayer by asking for the prayers from Mary, St. Joseph, my Guardian Angel and St. Michael the Archangel. Who might you ask for prayers?

The key in all this is simple- be thoughtful and find what feels right for when you conclude your prayers.

Try This If You Struggle With Silence

Silence is scary.

I was reminded of this during a recent 5am shuttle to the local airport.  There I was with the driver and two men who I did not know. Let’s just say that there wasn’t a whole lot of small talk.

Only silence.

You have probably had that same kind of experience.  You’re with strangers and simply have nothing left to say.  That’s perfectly acceptable but we often feel like we should be filling each moment with at least some form of noise.

When it comes to prayer, silence can also be scary.  We aren’t sure what to do.  We want to hear the Lord’s voice but He rarely speaks audibly.  We wait and nothing seems to happen. 

All of this is normal.  Don’t stress.  I have this happen too.

So here’s a simple trick for when you have a silent moment of prayer- be still and let the thoughts come and go.  You’ll be bombarded with random thoughts, odd things that pop into your head.  You’re not sure why.  You had no idea that your head was so noisy.

Imagine that you’re on a beach and looking out on the water.  You see a boat come into your sight.  You could swim out to that boat and get a closer look.  After all, it looks so interesting and the people on the boat are having a great time.

Or, you simply let it go.  You could just go back to whatever you were doing and just let the boat sail by. 

Now apply this same trick to your prayer life.  You’ll close your eyes when you are praying, wanting to just “be” with God.  You’ll want to enter into the silence and then a random thought will pop into your noggin.

Like the boat metaphor, let it go.  Sure, you could linger with that thought and really get a better look at it.  It’s probably interesting and worth your time.  But now, for at least a few minutes, just let it go. 

You can do this.  I’ve been using this trick for years and it works nearly every time.  It can work for you too.

Four Things That Make Morning Prayer So Difficult

Think of the last time you jumped out of bed and started your day with a smile.  Now look back at what made that morning work so well- what made the difference?  

When it comes to morning prayer, it’s easier for things to go off the tracks than for your morning to go smoothly.

Why is that?

In my experience, our mornings are the result of our evenings the day before.  I had one of these “good mornings” recently and it felt so good.  I got up at the right time, my morning prayers went well and my workday seemed to just “flow”.  

Most mornings get sidetracked as the result of the following:

1. We stay up too late the night before.  If you’re tired, you’re less likely to get up and get going in the morning.
2. We don’t have a morning routine down.  It’s a good idea to do the same things every morning in the same cadence- it cuts down on decision fatigue which can influence your desire to pray.
3. We haven’t laid out our tools in advance.  If you don’t know where you put your Bible and your journal, you are less likely to have a good experience of prayer.
4. We lack a structure for our prayers.  This is why the ACTS formula makes so much sense. It just works.

How are your mornings going lately?  Which of the factors above can you improve on?

Start Your Prayers With…

A good start goes a long way, whether it comes to your schedule or your prayer time.  

Think about it- you get up at a reasonable time in the morning, have a healthy breakfast and things just seem to fall into place as your day moves along.  It’s nearly a guarantee that the rest of the day will go well.  All because you got off to a good start.

Your morning prayer time is very, very similar.  We know that a good prayer time to start the day is valuable … the catch is this: how should you start?

There are about a thousand ways you could start your prayer time.  I imagine that many are quite effective.  Some could be elaborate (candles come to mind) while others could include music.  

In today’s post, I’ll simply share what I do and what works for me. If it’s useful, copy it immediately!
 
For me, what sets the tone and really centers me is to repeat the ancient words of the Church from the Liturgy of the Hours.  If you're not familiar, the Liturgy of the Hours is sometimes called the "prayer of the Church" and religious brothers, sisters and ordained ministers are required to pray the Hours at various times during the day.  The Hours form a framework around which the rest of the day gets scheduled.  

For me, it looks like this.  In my quiet spot in my home office, I close my eyes and say the following:

Oh God come to my assistance, Lord make haste to help me…

These words instantly put me into a mood of prayerfulness.  They act as a trigger for my mind, my heart and my body.  Knowing that the Church also uses these words brings some context to my time of prayer.  I know that holy men and women have uttered these same words for thousands of years.

If a good start is so important, what phrase or mantra can you use to start out your prayer?

Is Lent Stressing You Out?

It’s Lent once again and you’ve probably made anywhere from 2-3 Lenten “resolutions”.  Catholics have a love-hate relationship with these kinds of Lenten activities.

On one hand, we feel excited about doing something new for and with God.  We secretly feel that maybe, just maybe, this Lent we will draw closer to the Lord.  Will this be the year when I have a breakthrough?  Will this year be any different from previous years?

On the other hand, it can feel like drudgery.  The fasting bothers us.  The alms giving only reminds us that we aren’t that generous in the first place.  By the time Easter arrives, we are more relieved than anything. 

The other weird part of Lent is that we are, most of us anyways, pretty awful at making resolutions.  Think of the last New Year’s Resolution that actually stuck past February 1- I thought so.

I’m no different.  Some years during Lent have gone really well, others not so much.

This year, I’ve decided to give something up that’s a bit out of the ordinary: podcasts.  Hear me out.  I drive a lot of carpools each week, getting my kids to and from school  and sports practices.  There’s a lot of time in the car and sometimes it feels like a part time job. 

To fill the space, I listen to podcasts.  A typical week might offer me 20-25 podcasts.  I listen to casts about politics, sports, productivity, faith and everything in between. 

So far, my Lenten sacrifice has been difficult but good.

A bigger question is whether your Lenten sacrifices are stressing you out.  Are they?  What’s behind that stress?

1. A bit of friction might not be a bad thing. This might show you that you’ve been “soft” in the months (years?) leading up to Lent.  It might also be God telling you to sacrifice a bit more and to hang in there.  Sacrifice isn’t meant to be a cakewalk after all.
2. You may have set yourself up for failure.  Is your Lenten sacrifice unrealistic?  Have you taken on more than 1-2?

My advice would be to sacrifice only one thing for Lent.  The key though is to make it a meaningful sacrifice.  For me, it’s podcasts. For you, it may be something else. 

Finally, it’s ok to make a “mid-game adjustment” during Lent.  Pray for the wisdom and discernment to know what God wants for you to do during Lent.  After all, a Lenten sacrifice is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself.