Morning · 4 min read
How to keep a morning prayer habit past the first week
Most morning prayer plans fail on an ordinary Thursday. A smaller prayer, tied to something you already do, tends to last.
Most people who start praying in the morning stop somewhere around day five or six. The reason is rarely a lack of faith. The first few days run on enthusiasm, and then an ordinary Thursday arrives: a bad night’s sleep, a child up early, a meeting moved forward. The plan you made on Sunday did not account for Thursday.
What follows is a way to build a morning prayer that survives days like that. None of it is new. It is mostly what people who have prayed for many years will tell you if you ask them how they do it.
Make it smaller than you think it should be
The most common mistake is starting with thirty minutes. Start with five. A short prayer you actually pray is worth more than a long one you only intend to pray. Five minutes is enough to read a few verses, sit quietly with them, and say an honest sentence or two to God. If you want more time later, you can add it once the habit can hold the weight.
LORD, in the morning you will hear my voice. In the morning I will lay my requests before you, and will watch expectantly.
Psalm 5:3 (WEB)
Notice how little David describes here. He speaks, he lays out what he needs, and he watches. That is a whole morning prayer.
Tie it to something you already do
A set time on the clock is fragile, because mornings move. An anchor is sturdier. Choose something you already do every day without deciding to: starting the kettle, sitting down with coffee, the first minutes after a shower. Pray right after that, in the same place. After a couple of weeks the first thing will start to prompt the second.
Decide these three things tonight, and write them down:
- The anchor: what you will already be doing just before you pray.
- The place: one chair, one corner of the table, one seat in the parked car.
- The first step: the exact thing you will do first, such as opening to a psalm or reading the day’s verse aloud.
Get ahead of your phone
For most of us the real competitor is the phone. Once you have read messages or headlines, your attention belongs to them, and prayer has to make do with what is left. Pray before you open anything else. If your Bible or your prayers are on your phone, open those first and leave the notifications for afterward. Some people charge the phone outside the bedroom and keep a paper Bible by the chair. Do whatever makes the right thing the easy thing.
Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place, and prayed there.
Mark 1:35 (WEB)
Mark records this after a long evening in which the whole town had gathered at the door. Jesus went looking for quiet before the day’s demands found him. Your version may be a kitchen table at 6:40, and that is fine.
Use the same simple shape every day
Deciding what to do each morning uses up the energy you need for doing it. Keep one plain order and repeat it:
- Be still for a few breaths. Say, “Lord, here I am.”
- Read a short passage slowly, once or twice.
- Tell God one thing you are thankful for and one thing you need today.
- Name one person and ask God to help them.
- Finish with the Lord’s Prayer or a simple “Amen.”
That takes about five minutes. On mornings when you have longer, stay longer in the reading or the silence. On mornings when you have ninety seconds, do the first and third steps and go.
Plan for the morning you miss
You will miss a day. Everyone does. What matters is what you tell yourself afterward. One missed morning is an interruption, and it only becomes the end of the habit if you decide it proves something about you. It proves nothing. God’s welcome on the morning after is the same as it was on the morning before.
A simple rule helps: try never to miss twice in a row, and when you come back, do not attempt to make up for lost time. Pray today’s prayer. If mornings truly cannot work in this season of life, because of shift work or a newborn, move the same five minutes to the first quiet moment you get and call that your morning.
Morning prayer is a way of beginning the day turned toward God, before you turn toward everything else. It comes with no guarantee of an easier day. Kept small and kept steady, it has a good chance of still being there next month.