Regular readers of this column are aware that I’m finishing up a year-long liturgy for daily prayer, built on the same pattern and structure as my 30 Days Series. Newcomers to this way of structured prayer sometimes tell me they struggle at first to make the words of other Christians their own—to pray someone else’s words as if they came from the heart. Incorporating written prayers can feel inauthentic or forced, especially for those who’ve grown up in traditions where spontaneity is the sign of sincerity and formulaic or repetitive prayers are minimally used, if at all.
As someone whose prayer life has mixed both the spontaneous and the written, I’ve often made a case for written prayers by (1) pointing to the precedent of praying the Psalms and then (2) likening our prayers using the words of saints from years gone by to the desire of a little boy trying on his father’s shoes. At first, the shoes feel too big and clunky, yet over time, you can feel your heart expanding toward the intensity and clarity found in the prayers of the past.
For more than two decades now, I’ve been collecting prayers from faithful Christians across centuries and continents, and I’ve found that taking the words of our forefathers and mothers in the faith and making them our own is one way I can orient my heart toward asking for—and desiring—what’s best.
Structure and Spontaneity
I recently came across another analogy that advocates for incorporating written prayers into our prayer life. Singer-songwriter Andrew Osenga’s new book, How to Remember: Forgotten Pathways to an Authentic Faith, looks at prayer through the eyes of a musician, and he compares it to the difference between jam bands and players with intention.
“I’ve never liked jam bands,” he writes, “which might sound odd for a guitar player who really, really loves listening to great guitar players. But dudes playing notes just to play notes is not always that fun to listen to. The great players, though, play with intention. There’s a structure to it. A cadence, a kind of logic. Setting, conflict, resolution. A beginning, a middle, an end.”
As he considers the relationship between spontaneity and structure, he recognizes that “being spontaneous is not the only form of being genuine, nor is it always the most honest.” The same is true with prayer. What feels effortless in the moment often rests on long practice and learned form.
The only kinds of prayer I had ever heard in my life had been jam bands. Everybody had been riffing. Some had played beautifully, some had missed a lot of notes, and some had just played scales over and over again, hoping no one noticed. You learn, after a while, that sitting in to jam with people, unless they are really, really good, means just knowing a few of the right licks. In youth group, I knew how to say a few of the right phrases and sound like a genuine, deep, worshipful person, even in moments my heart was not in it at all. The fact that my prayer was “spontaneous” did not make it more or less genuine, nor was it really that spontaneous. I just played the licks I knew.
We’ve all been there. We know a few things to pray. We say whatever comes to mind, but whatever comes to mind often sounds like what we’ve heard others say, or whatever we feel in the moment. Praying alongside our forefathers and mothers expands our vocabulary of faith, giving us better notes to play when we improvise.
“There is no better teacher for a musician than to learn the music of better musicians,” Andrew writes. And the same goes for prayer. Structured prayers aren’t opposed to our spontaneous prayers—they work in symbiotic relationship. The written prayers heighten our spontaneous prayers, and the spontaneous prayers breathe life into structures that can become rote or routine.
Prayer as Communion, Not Performance
Now, there’s a big caveat to this analogy—one Andrew himself recognizes. Prayer isn’t performance. Not when we really pray. We’re opening ourselves up before our Father.
In The Gospel Way Catechism, Thomas West and I define prayer this way:
Prayer is communion with God in the name of the Son with the help of the Spirit. Prayer is a pursuit not of mindfulness but the mind of Jesus, through praise, confession, and petition. Its aim is not self-expression, but spiritual formation.
The Bible’s vision of prayer isn’t performative; it’s profoundly personal. It’s not just a monologue where we speak our thoughts into silence; it’s a dialogue, a heartfelt conversation with God, an openness to receive and respond to his Word. Prayer is an invitation to encounter the Trinity:
- You present yourself before your Father in all your mess, with all your doubts and frustrations, trusting that the God who knows you still loves you.
- You pray in the name of Jesus, a humble confession that you don’t have the standing to approach God on your own; you rely on the Son’s merit to enter the Father’s throne room.
- You pray with the Holy Spirit as your guide, who brings light and direction to the journey, a skilled translator who perfectly renders your groans and sighs to the Father.
Three aspects of prayer form a harmonious symphony. Praise magnifies God’s glory, confession deepens our intimacy, and petition reinforces our reliance on his wisdom and care. Praise is when the magnitude of God’s beauty and awesomeness overwhelms us. It’s an eruption of the soul’s delight. Confession is when we realize how far we’ve missed the mark and want to be forgiven. Petition is when we share our desires, concerns, and needs with God.
So where do written prayers fit? We’re taught to pray by those who came before us. We follow their patterns, inhabit and grow into their words. As Andrew writes,
I deeply love both thoughtful, thoroughly intentional writing and brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime, spontaneous moments of inspiration. They are not in competition; rather they feed each other and make the experience of the other that much richer.
Amen. The combination of structure and spontaneity is one of the often missed secrets to learning how to pray. The best prayers are neither riffs nor recitations but rehearsals in love—where form shapes the heart and freedom lifts the song.
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