“But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” Matthew 6:6
This is one of my favorite Bible verses because it is the Bible that encouraged me to pray exclusively to God for the first time. When we are able to set aside a special time and place to pray with God, we are inviting Him to come into our lives in a way He was unable to come before.
God wants to come into our lives. He wants to speak with us. He wants us to knock so that He can open the door and let us into His never ending love. The problem a lot of times is that we are not giving God the time to let Him into our lives. We might feel like we are praying all the time. We might wake up, say our morning prayer, pray while we brush our teeth and drive to work, bless our food, and say our night prayers. Those are all great things! We definitely should be praying and talking to God all day long without ceasing. However, all of those are not a special time dedicated and focused on God alone. If we want to grow closer to God, we need to dedicate specific times to spend with Him, and only Him.
This is true with all relationships. You might spend all day long with your coworkers at your job, talk to them throughout the day, and know everything about their personal lives, but it is not until you hang out with them outside of work to spend quality and undivided attention with them that you actually get to know them as a person and form a personal relationship with them. This is also why it is important for married couples to never stop dating. They might live in the same house and see each other every day, but if they do not make time to spend quality undivided attention with one another, then their relationship becomes distant despite living in the same house together. The same is true with our relationship with Jesus. We might say our daily prayers, read the Bible, go to Church, and believe in Him. But if we do not make an effort to spend that quality undivided attention with Him on a daily basis, it is easy to feel distant from Him.
I experienced this from my own personal relationship with Jesus. Our relationship started when I created a “God Time” for just Jesus and me to talk for thirty minutes without any interruptions and distractions. During that time I prayed the rosary, talked to Jesus like I would my best friend, and just sat in silence looking at the crucifix giving Him the opportunity to talk to me. I did this everyday in high school, while I had lots of free time to do so.
In college, my “God Time” changed. I was able to go to Mass every day which was amazing. My “God Time” became getting to Mass thirty minutes early each day to meditate and pray in front of the tabernacle. It was beautiful, and where my love of just sitting in front of the tabernacle came from.
Then, I started teaching full time. As my fellow teachers know, that meant I had less free time to pray and go to Mass every day as I was always working. This is when my “God Time” ended. I replaced that undivided attention on God with just the few moments I could fit Him into my busy schedule. I started praying the rosary on my way to work, but it wasn’t the same. I continued to “pray without ceasing” as I would talk to God as I walked the hallways at school which was much needed, but something was still missing in my prayer life.
Two years ago I figured out what was missing when I went on a young adult Catholic retreat and an awesome priest gave a homily about prayer. He explained how great praying without ceasing is but that it’s not enough. When we just fit God into our schedule, it is not the same as giving Him our first fruits of time. We need to set aside a specific time to pray to God everyday and do it without multitasking during that prayer. He gave the acronym ADEPT of how to start doing this “God Time” of prayer. ADEPT stands for Area, Duration, Exclusive, Plan, Time. Each of these things need to be decided beforehand to make your “God Time” be focused on God.
Area means that you have a special place set aside to pray. When you are praying while lounging on the couch or sleeping in your bed, your attention is not on God. It is important to find a special place that helps you focus on God alone during prayer. For me, I have a specific position that I can focus best on God. That is when I am sitting on the floor looking up at the foot of the crucifix, the Tabernacle, or the Eucharist in the Monstrance. Everyone may have their own special Area and position that they can focus best on God during prayer. It may be in nature, in a certain room, looking at a specific picture or statue, kneeling, standing, or anything else. It doesn’t matter where your Area is as long as you set it aside as the specific place you are going to pray.
Duration means how long you are going to pray. It can be tempting to tell ourselves we will just pray as long as the Spirit leads us, but this is actually a bad plan because it is not a plan at all. That might work the first day, or maybe on days you have something important to pray about, but most days this will only lead us to the temptation to finish our prayer quickly so we can check our phone, go eat a snack, binge watch our favorite show or go to bed. This is why our “God Time” needs to be a specific time decided to be set aside for God BEFORE we start to pray. When we set a specific time for God we are assured that we won’t be cutting our time with God short because we dedicated a certain amount of time to God each day. 10 minutes is a good amount to start with. I try to do 20-30 minutes each day. If you have the time for longer, then awesome! But remember to set a reasonable goal for yourself so that you do not get discouraged.
Exclusive means that your “God Time” is just that, only God’s time and nothing else. God is the only focus for the entire duration of your prayer time. Not cooking, cleaning, walking the dog, checking your phone, catching up on work or anything. Only God. The entire duration is dedicated to God. You can dedicate it to God in different ways whether that be reading the Bible or a devotional book, talking to Him, sitting in silence, or another kind of prayer. But “God TIme” is only for God.
Plan means you know exactly how you are going to spend the time with God. For instance, you can start with one chapter from the book of the bible you are reading, next spend five minutes in silence, then the last ten minutes talking to God about your day. Right now I have two specific books I am reading during my “God TIme” and spending the rest of the time ‘journal praying’ which just means I write down everything I want to say to God because it helps me focus and not get distracted while I am talking to Him. Your plan is up to you and can change as often as you need, but make sure that you plan your entire duration of your “God Time” before you get started so that your time spent with God is purposeful.
Finally, Time means the specific time of day that you pray. That could be first thing in the morning, after lunch, after work, after dinner, or before bed. The important part about this is you chose a time that is always consistent. For me, if I was to choose first thing in the morning that would be a terrible choice. I am not a morning person and wake up with only ten minutes to get dressed and walk my dog before I have to run out the door so I am not late for work. Clearly, I would never be able to convince my half asleep self to wake up thirty minutes earlier to pray. However, when I get home from work is the perfect time for me because it is something consistent that I can keep myself accountable for. So figure out the best time for you to dedicate to God everyday and set an alarm on your phone to keep you accountable to your “God Time.”
This acronym of praying has helped me get back to my “God Time” that I had been missing since I graduated college. It keeps me accountable for not only praying with God but exclusively setting aside time for God on a regular basis. Figure your own Area, Duration, Exclusive, Plan, and Time that works best for you and ask a good spiritual friend to be an accountability partner to your “God Time.” Let them know the exact time you plan to finish praying and they can check in on you every once in a while to make sure you are still on track. Setting aside that special “God Time” each day will really help your relationship with God to grow. Even though sometimes you may be tempted to not want to do it, continuing to pray during the spiritual hardships and dryness will bear so much fruit to your relationship with God and help you grow closer to Him in the long run.
“Don't imagine that, if you had a great deal of time, you would spend more of it in prayer. Get rid of that idea; it is no hindrance to prayer to spend your time well.”--St. Teresa of Avila
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