Even as a child, I knew that my mom practiced her own quiet daily devotions time. She did not make a big deal out of it. She had a spot in her bedroom, a chair, a lamp, a small image of Jesus in Gethsemane, and a marked-up Bible. When the door was left ajar, I recall seeing her literally on her knees in prayer. Once she told me that her mother, even while raising seven kids, did her private devotional time at the kitchen table. Imagine the concentration that would have required!

I’m grateful I was taught that a “personal relationship with the Lord” was essential to the Christian life. We weren’t Evangelical with a capital E, I was instructed, we were Reformed! But we were certainly evangelical in the sense that each person was expected to cultivate a devotional practice of their own—in addition to all the worship services, Bible study, and catechism classes in our weekly rotations. “You can’t get to heaven on the family plan!” was one explanation I heard. Which confused me, because… wasn’t that tantamount to works righteousness? And anyway, how does covenant theology fit in then?

Now, of course, I understand that personal prayer and devotional practice are hardly exclusive to modern evangelicals (small e). All ages and forms of Christianity have their flavors of such practices. I also understand this is not about getting into heaven, lack of family plans notwithstanding. “Devotions,” done well, are a lifelong practice of deeply personal longing and wrestling in response to a God who draws us to the divine self, each with our own unique soul.

That sounds beautiful and profound, but a survey of my own devotional history reveals… kind of a mess? Here are some things I’ve tried over the years, and how it went.

Memorizing scripture. As small children at a Christian school, of course we memorized Psalm 23 and Psalm 100 (KJV) among other favorites. My pious teenage self became even more ambitious: Romans 8, Psalm 51 (NIV by this time). I can still trace the grooves in my memory of all those words; I’m glad I put those grooves there early. I still memorize sometimes, often during Lent. (Imprecatory Psalms are a recent favorite.) I’ve memorized hymn texts, too. A good practice. I am by no means systematic about it, though. Kind of a whatever/whenever sort of approach.

The ACTS prayer. I learned this prayer pattern at a breakout session at the Young Calvinist Convention in 1982. Remember those conventions, anyone? I hated every minute of it—ick, the hugs and rah-rah and forced pretend-sharing! But the wise elderly lady (she was probably 48 or something) who taught that one breakout session actually had some helpful things to say. I still use Adoration-Confession-Thanksgiving-Supplication sometimes. I’ve always wondered about that adoration part. Do I just go on to God about how amazing God is? I guess? I still use this pattern sometimes just to organize weary and scattered thoughts. I focus on creation-related things for the adoration part. Works OK.  

Walking and praying. Exercise and prayer! Efficient! I started this practice as a teenager and continued it all through college. I walked almost daily around the long block we lived on (maybe two miles?), usually working down a list in my mind of people to pray for. In college, I remember striding around a park on North Campus at the University of Michigan, practicing Isaiah 35 and working down my list. I was big on lists. Task-oriented me. When I walk now, irregularly, I mostly let my mind wander. Sometimes I pray, but no lists. More free-style.

This video is twenty years old, but it’s still on point.

Random fragments. That’s about all I could muster in the early years of babies and children. A few random prayers here and there as I folded laundry or rustled up supper. I remember a lot of praying in the middle of the night while nursing a baby. I would pray profound prayers such as, “Please, Lord, help this child go right back to sleep.” No brain power available for much more. I did sing hymns to the nursing babies, which helped. “Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly” was a favorite. I wasn’t being funny. I really needed the safe haven, plenteous grace, and healing streams.

Dinner devotions. Not exactly a personal practice, but one I do miss. I grew up on it, perfunctory though it sometimes felt. Spouse Ron and I struggled for years trying to find devotional books that didn’t annoy us. To no avail. We tried just reading the Bible straight up. We even tried a book that rendered short Bible passages in the original Hebrew-plus-Septuagint or Greek-plus-Latin. We would try to translate ourselves, depending mostly on Ron’s language training and partly on my cognate-based creative suggestions. This was great fun and sometimes quite revealing. These days, with crisscrossing schedules and constant evening homework, we don’t sit down to eat together nearly as much. And when we do: eh. I’m not sure what happened there.

Swallow’s Nest. This is a lovely devotional book written by my mother-in-law, Marchiene Rienstra (Eerdmans 1992). The Psalms are all translated afresh with feminine imagery (and pronouns) for God, arranged in a daily reading pattern with prayer suggestions and other readings and hymns. I went through this book several times years ago, and I do think it helped wean me of “bearded-man-in-the-sky” images for God.

In the early aughts, I was writing a chapter for the book Worship Words on language for God and reading books like Brian Wren’s What Language Shall I Borrow? Wren’s analysis of the dominant image system we use in much of church life, which he dubbed “KINGAFAP,” was a revelation. King-God-Almighty-Father-Protector swallows up so much of our devotional language, there’s hardly room for the many other biblical names and images for God. Alas, working on expanded imagery and language for God was apparently a phase the English-speaking church went through in the 1980s and 90s, a phase that the evangelical world mostly successfully ignored (when not objecting to it vociferously anyway).

I think the way I imagine God much benefitted from this phase, but alas what I hear in a lot of new worship songs these days is all king-this, crown-that, bowing down before thrones. I’m convinced this is more about English rhyming words than adherence to theological principle: king/sing, crown/bow down, high/sky. It’s just too easy.   

Jesus Prayer. Some people find great comfort in praying the Jesus Prayer over and over: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” I’ve tried it. I’ve even tried replacing all the words to stoke my imagination past the familiar titles: “Loaf-giver [the etymology of Lord], Anointed One, Revealer of Eternal Being…” Eh. I just can’t keep doing the same phrase over and over. A sign of my devotional immaturity, I’m sure.

Contemplative prayer. Are you kidding? With a brain constantly racing around like mine does?

Journaling. Yes. I’ve been a haphazard journaler since college. I scribble in a notebook from time to time mostly as a way to process life, but I find that my private writing frequently veers off into prayer. Sometimes in the form of gratitude, but more often in the form of “what’s going on?” or “how long???” sorts of pleas. Lots of question marks.

Public writing. It took me some thought before I realized I could add this one to the list. RJ readers have been subjected to a public version of many of my spiritual struggles over the last fifteen years. This has been enormously helpful to me. So thank you. They say preachers preach the sermon they need to hear. Well, writers write the devotional blog posts they need to read.

Lenten “fasting.” Sure, I used to do this. Did it make me more spiritual? Not really. It just made me really, really appreciate chocolate on Easter.

Actual fasting. No way. If I don’t eat, I just shut down.

The silent treatment. Three times in my life I have been so angry with God, I have attempted to give God the silent treatment. I think God just kindly and patiently let me fume for a few days. That’s as long as I could last. I guess I’ve been praying too long to stop now. I can’t help it.

A nun. At a very low point, I took a recommendation to go see a nun for spiritual guidance. This particular nun was scary and kind of mean. Did not work for me. Nothing against nuns in general!

A counselor. At another low point, I met (online) with a professional psychologist recommended by a friend. She was amazing. One of the only people I’ve ever met that I felt saw my soul truly and well. I still remember some key things she said, like “If you can’t trust God, you have to be God.” Life-changing. Alas, I got “better” and she had a stroke, and she more or less graduated me. I still miss her.

A spiritual director. A new thing for me. Too new to give much of a report on, but helpful so far. Spiritual directors just help you listen for what God is doing and saying in your life—I think? Another perspective does help, but I still feel squeamish sharing anything about my “personal walk with God,” as we used to say. I find it much easier to write about it, as you can see.

The Enneagram. Ron and I went through an Enneagram phase over twenty years ago that was a turning point in both our spiritual lives, I think. We never paid for a workshop or anything; we just read a bunch of books. Turns out spiritual growth does not look the same for everyone. You want to know your own sin and grow in the Lord, whatever that means? Well, find out what’s really at the root of your distance from God. Find out your particular path toward wholeness. If you feel exposed like a naked person on a rainy day, you’ve probably hit on the truth about you. Enneagram work, I’ve found, is both bracing and empowering. You and God will be working on this stuff all your life.

Pray As You Go. Of course we now have prayer apps. I actually like this one. It’s produced in the UK, and each day’s twelve-minute guided prayer time begins with church bells. A different set of bells every day! Then there’s music, scripture reading with some lectio-style questions, vibe music, and a prayer prompt. This is a good formula for late at night when you have no energy to think for yourself. Sometimes I don’t love the opening music (sometimes I love it!). Sometimes the questions seem obvious, or they ask you, in good Ignatian style, to “imagine yourself in the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount.” For some reason, this kind of thing annoys me. What do I know about what that scene might have been like? And I’m not in ancient Palestine! Still, I appreciate the structure, the varied soundscape, and the British accents.

The Lord’s Prayer. Yeah, I do feel as if I pray this one more deeply as the years go by. Turns out Jesus knew what he was talking about. Also creates good structure for when your brain is tired.

Praying with images. This is a recent one for me. Frankly, I’m tired of yammering words and words and words at God. I’ve given up on lists. I do pray for people—unsystematically—and I pray for my children constantly. But I’m trying to trust the whole “sighs too deep for words” thing more. I’m trying to receive more. My friend Alison taught me the prayer questions: What do you want me to receive? What do you want me to know? What do you want me to let go of? (That one is the hardest for me.) And then, What do you want me to do? I ask those questions, but I don’t try to produce many more of my own words. I just let images come. Difficult with my buzzy brain, but I’m getting better at it.

Do I do any of this stuff every day? Nah. For someone so task-oriented and organized in most of my life, I find it curious that I’ve been restless and haphazard in my devotional life. I suppose it has something to do with spending so much time studying and teaching and writing about the Bible and theology that I’ve done a lot of my wrestling with the mystery that way. I run out of perfect self-discipline for the daily devotion routines.

Ultimately, I don’t think perfect consistency matters much. People are different, and it’s probably natural that our patterns change with seasons of life. As Thomas Merton said, “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never by anything else but beginners, all our life.”

I appreciate that comfort more as the years go by and I wonder why I’m not more “mature in the faith.” Our inner lives are so mysterious and elusive. God is so mysterious and elusive. That space of encounter between the two, its bumps and detours over a lifetime—even the mystics struggle to describe it. I think the main thing is simply to keep at it, to keep yearning toward God in whatever way we can, trying to trust that, as Romans assures us, the Spirit is working in us.