If you find yourself saying, “I’m just too busy to pray,” you may be missing the point of prayer. Prayer is learning to live your entire life in conversation with God. It is in the seasons of busyness that prayer should become our primary practice, not the neglected one.

However, in those seasons, its form may look different.

Sometimes prayer is barely even words. It may simply be taking a deep breath and becoming aware that God is present. Here. Now. With me.

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Romans 8:26

Sometimes prayer is only a sentence. When Peter begins sinking beneath the waves, he does not compose an eloquent prayer. He cries, “Lord, save me!” (Matthew 14:30). The tax collector simply prays, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).

Sometimes structure can help us pray. One of the most ancient prayers of the Church, commonly called the Jesus Prayer, is: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One way to pray it is to slowly shorten the prayer, pausing between each line:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus.
Lord.

Another great prayer is the full Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Neihbur:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to
change the things I can & the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time. Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, the sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to His will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever. Amen.

In American evangelicalism, we can become suspicious of structured or liturgical prayers. We sometimes assume spontaneous prayer is somehow more authentic. However, I have noticed most of those are what I call “Just-Lord” prayers: “Just Lord, we just come to you, Lord, and we just ask that you would just…”

But spontaneous does not necessarily mean more sincere. Sometimes a structured prayer gives us words when we cannot find our own. It can ground us when our fears, emotions, worries, and anxieties threaten to consume us.

In Step 11, AA reminds those in recovery that perfection is not the goal; progress is the objective. Whatever form our prayer takes, each day we are simply seeking to “improve our conscious contact with God.”

Because ultimately, prayer is not simply something we stop our lives to do. Prayer is learning to live seek God every moment of everyday.