Making an Appointment with God
One’s relationship with God is the most important thing. Prayer is the way to grow that relationship, because, simply put, prayer is conversation with God.
In his little book, Appointment with God, Fr. Michael Scanlan says, “If we don’t pray I don’t think we can ever get our lives in order or accomplish all we are called upon to accomplish. Whether you are a father or mother, husband or wife…prayer is what brings your life together.” Prayer is what makes you whole, and holds all the pieces of life and parts of you together.
Prayer is not some formulaic thing, some reality too lofty for most people to attain, something reserved for a pious few. For human beings, God’s creatures, prayer is the most natural thing, in a sense. We were made to pray — to speak with God. We’re the only creatures on the face of the earth that converse with God. Peter Kreeft, in Prayer for Beginners, comments on the natural-ness of prayer, saying:
“Can you talk to a friend? Then you can talk to God, for he is your Friend. And that is what prayer is…Prayer is so simple that no method at all is needed.”
Relationships rely on communication. Friendships fall apart without speaking with each other. A husband and a wife who don’t talk don’t last. Quality time and quality conversation matters. Relationships depend on communication, like the body depends on oxygen. So, too, prayer gives life to the soul and one’s relationship with God depends on it.
Most people don’t pray because they don’t have faith, don’t see the point, don’t know how, or don’t have time. This article will focus on the last of these reasons — not having time. To put it frankly, if prayer is as important as I’ve made it out to be since the first paragraph, not having time is not a good excuse. For most people, not praying is not so much a time-thing as it is a priority-thing.
If you look at your calendar, you will see what your priorities are — they take up blocks of time during your day. You write your priorities on your calendar or add them into your calendar app. We put appointments in calendars and we don’t want to miss them — we won’t miss them — because they’re priorities.
Building on this basic premise, Fr. Scanlan invites us to consider making an appointment with God. He asks, “What does it mean to have an appointment? It means you make some kind of commitment to be somewhere at such and such an hour, at such and such a place to meet with so and so.” Not surprisingly, these are the key elements of making a prayer appointment with God — you know when you will meet, where you will meet, and with whom you will meet.
After reading Fr. Scanlan’s book (and meeting my wife, who was an evangelist for Fr. Scanlan’s simple message), my prayer time, my appointment with God, now appears on my calendar. I have to carve out that time and space or it simply won’t happen. It has to be a priority and I can’t be trying to do anything else during that time. It doesn’t need to be super long, but it does need to be super focused. The Catechism talks about the importance of setting aside time for praying with a singular focus:
Prayer is the life of the new heart. It ought to animate us at every moment. But we tend to forget him who is our life and our all. This is why the Fathers of the spiritual life…insist that prayer is a remembrance of God often awakened by the memory of the heart: “We must remember God more often than we draw breath.” But we cannot pray “at all times” if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it. (CCC 2697)
It is true, St. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Pray “at all times,” he says. But, we can’t pray always if we don’t pray at specific times. I call these “prayer anchors.” You need certain fixed points that the thread of prayer throughout the day hangs upon.
Again, when making an appointment/scheduling a meeting, you know who the appointment is with, when, where, and for approximately how long the appointment will last. You also typically know the content of the appointment — what you will be discussing, etc. Let’s apply this to prayer:
With whom? I’ll give you the answer to this one: God.
When will you meet? If God is most important, he should get the best time of day. In general, what is the best time for you to pray? (Be very specific)
Where will you meet? (Setting) What is a solitary place where you won’t be too distracted. Where will you pray each day?
How long will you meet? Consider making a commitment that will bend, but not break you. What is a reasonable time commitment? (Consider 10 minutes at a minimum. Though, we should keep in mind what St. Francis de Sales once said to lay people: “Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer a day, except when we are busy – then we need an hour.”)
It is worth noting that the appointment with God should be shrouded in silence. In silence, God speaks. As Robert Cardinal Sarah puts it in The Power of Silence, “At the heart of man there is an innate silence, for God abides in the innermost part of every person. God is silence, and this divine silence dwells in man.” We hear God speak to us in silence. For this appointment, whatever we can do to cultivate exterior quiet (like praying before the kids wake up, with cell phone off, etc.) and interior silence is well worth it.
If you are looking for more peace in your life, you would do well to start with prayer — your own daily prayer time. Prayer puts us into contact with Jesus Christ, the peace the world cannot give, the peace we are looking for, and the peace that can overflow into the whole of our lives in ways nothing else can.
It all begins with a daily appointment with God.