Chapter TwoDaily Prayer

Almost every day I meet people who tell me they are writing a book. Others tell me they have always wanted to write a book. I always encourage them, but in my heart I know that very few will actually ever write the book they tell me about. Most people like the idea of writing a book because it intrigues them. They get caught up in the idea of losing themselves in the creative process. But the reality is writing a book is just hard work. The beginning, when you conceive the idea for the book, is wonderful and exciting. But that doesn’t last very long and then the hard work begins. Throughout the process there will be times when you catch a wave of inspiration, but if you wrote only when you felt inspired you would never finish your book.

Writing a book requires daily discipline. You have to work at it every day, even if some days all you do is read over what you wrote yesterday to keep it fresh in your mind. Writing a book requires the discipline to write when you feel like itand when you don’t. Most people don’t have this discipline, which is why many who start writing a book never finish it. When we think of writing a book we conjure romantic images of the artist at work in an inspirational setting, effortlessly penning page after page. The truth is, as already mentioned, writing a book is mostly hard work, and we are still just talking about writing a book. We have not spoken of writing a good book or even a great book yet.

Prayer is similar in many ways. Many people fail to establish a daily habit of prayer in their lives because they approach it with the wrong expectations. Consciously or subconsciously, most people approach prayer expecting it to be easy. The truth is, prayer is perhaps the most difficult thing we will ever do. From time to time, we may get carried away by a moment of inspiration in our prayer, but for the most part prayer is hard work—work well worth doing, but hard work nonetheless.

You don’t become a great athlete by training only when you feel like it. You don’t become a great writer by writing only when you feel inspired to write. And the saints did not become such fine ambassadors of God on earth by praying only when they felt like praying. In each case, a daily discipline is required.

Many years ago I saw a violinist interviewed. At the time he was considered the best in the world. He explained to the interviewer that he practiced for eight to ten hours each day. The interviewer implied that surely at this stage in his career he could ease up a little with the practice. The violinist smiled and said, “If I miss practice one day and perform the next night, I am the only person who can tell. But I can tell. My performance is off. If I missed practice every day for a week and then performed, there would only be a handful of people in any audience who would be able to tell that my performance