5 minute read
This morning, I rode a bike to nowhere with Ally Love.
Allow me to clarify…
I woke up at 5:00am in Bellevue, Washington where I’d flown the night prior for work and dragged myself to the hotel gym where, to my delight, I saw they had a Peloton.
A Peloton, if you don’t know, is a super-fancy, ultra-expensive stationary bike with a giant screen. On the screen, you get to choose from a wide array of spin instructors who talk (and rock!) you through a variety of classes. It’s kind of weird because these instructors are talking right to you while you ride, even though it was recorded days prior and thousands of miles away. You’re there with them… but you’re actually not. It’s a little like exercising in an episode of Black Mirror. (“Lean closer into the screen…” “Uh, okay…” “Got you!” “Ahh!… Now I’m a string of 0s and 1s…!”)
I’ve done the Peloton thing before so I went with the instructor I was familiar with: Ally Love. I’m not sure Ally Love is her real name (it’s probably Allison Love), but she’s a good instructor. She’s obviously in good shape, seems to really enjoy riding a bike that stands still, has her wildly curly hair clumped up on top of her head (which kind of makes her look like a crown of broccoli which makes sense as, from her fitness, I’m assuming broccoli is her primary intake), and calls you “boss” a lot while you ride. (“You got this, boss.” “Hitting the hill hard, boss.” “Can I get a week off for my cousin’s wedding in August, boss?”)
Ally Love’s job is to keep her riders going. She doesn’t want them to give up. It’s like she knows I’m tired, in a strange city, and wanting to blow the whole thing off and go back to my hotel room bed and watch a morning talk show where a celebrity promotes her new movie while explaining how to make an egg-free omelette.
The Peloton class I took was 30-minutes long. 30 minutes. That’s… well… that’s a long time riding a bike without wheels.
One of the ways Ally Love keeps her riders going is by letting them know how much longer they have along the way. It’s not just how long they have until the end of the class, though. She lets them know how long they’re going to ride up a hill (high resistance, low cadence) or sprint (low resistance, high cadence) or serve penance for all the ways they talked terribly to their mother during their middle school years (high resistance, high cadence).
“Three more minutes of sprint, boss.”
“You got this. End of this hill in four minutes…”
“Rest in five minutes…”
These little check-ins along the way break the 30-minute class up into bite-sized pieces.
30-minutes of riding hard at 5:00am when I left a lot of sleep there in my comfy hotel bed that I’d like to go back and retrieve? No way.
But chunks… bits… five minutes here… three minutes there… I can do that.
Which naturally leads to… prayer.
*****
Here’s something you don’t say out loud—and definitely don’t write and publish on the Internet: I don’t like to pray.
But, well… here I am saying it: I don’t like to pray.
I know, I know… you love to pray, don’t you? You just love it. You love to sit and pray and then pray some more and then pray for another couple of hours beyond that.
I have to imagine I’m not alone in saying I don’t necessarily like to pray. Right? (C’mon, help a fella out…)
For me, it’s hard.
I sit there, quietly, and talk to God in my mind, asking Him for things, thanking Him, seeking out His wisdom…
On paper, all of those things sound great…
But in practice… it’s not always easy, is it?
It’s the silence, right? It can often… just… feel… silent. Quiet.
Like I’m writing words in the air with my finger.
While my mind wanders to vitally important things like, “What time is my first meeting this morning?” and “How much gas is in the car?” and “Do we have enough eggs in the fridge to make an egg-free omelette?”
But here’s the thing: I know, deep down, it’s good for me to pray.
Jesus prayed. Moses prayed. Paul prayed. All sorts of Bible people prayed.
And we’re told by God to pray to Him.
I know good (great!) things have happened in my life because I’ve prayed. Even (especially?) the times I prayed when I didn’t necessarily feel like it.
Now, I’m not here to hash out the ins and outs of prayer—why it seems to work sometimes and doesn’t other times, or the real purpose behind prayer—but if we can agree that prayer is good… and important… and something God wants us to do… maybe there’s another way people who don’t necessarily love to pray can come at it.
*****
A few years ago, I decided to pray more.
This did not go well.
I locked myself in my office and… prayed. And prayed… and prayed.
And (again, this is me being honest) I had this thought in my head the whole time: “How long do I have to do this for it to count?”
(Terrible, huh? I know. I’m the worst. But I bet a lot of people reading this are also the worst. Hey! Let’s all be the worst together! We can be like a gang.)
So what did I do after awhile? I gave up.
Why? Because I had no idea how long I needed to pray! Something in me saw it all wrong and thought that I just needed to pray and pray and pray until—I don’t know—the door flew open, Jesus stepped in, and said, “You’re good. Now, go start your day.”
And when that didn’t happen… and I just petered out and stopped praying, I felt (get ready, here comes the key word) guilty.
Guilty.
I felt guilty that I didn’t pray enough.
Prayed only twenty minutes? I felt guilty.
Prayed only thirty minutes? I felt guilty.
And when I felt guilty often enough, I just… gave… up.
Why? Because there wasn’t any sort of end in sight. There was no way to know when I’d done the good thing I needed to have done.
It was like running a race without a finish line, working on a project with no completion marker, eating an endless pile of steamed broccoli.
So, I gave up.
For awhile.
Until…
I discovered the timer on my phone.
And that made all the difference.
I had a realization one day: when I just try to pray without any end in sight… I don’t really pray much at all… and I give up… and stop praying altogether. This is bad.
So… what if I set a timer on my phone. What if I set a timer for, say, five minutes, and prayed for five minutes. Just five minutes. And then, when the timer goes off, I’m not just allowed to be done praying… I have to be done praying.
Why “have to”? Because if I didn’t put that check inside myself, then I’d nag myself after and go, “Well, that was only five minutes… and, really, shouldn’t you pray even more? If you were really spiritual… if you really loved God… you would…” And what’s that? That’s right, more guilt. Which leads to giving up… which is the exact opposite of what I wanted to do in the first place.
So this is what I do now.
A lot of the times when I pray, I set a timer.
I know… I know… how un-spiritual does that sound? It’s not like Jesus sat in the Garden of Gethsemane with an hourglass going, “Only five more teaspoons of sand and then I can be done…” I know. I get it.
But I need little guardrails like this to keep me going.
I need little chunks.
I need bite-sized pieces.
I need God’s spirit within me functioning a bit like Ally Love going, “Just five minutes, boss… only five minutes. You can do this.”
And you know what happens when I do this?
I actually pray.
And not only that… but I actually like praying.
*****
Where are you today? (I don’t mean what city you’re in but if you’d like to shout that out, have at it. Just yell out what city you’re in to your phone, tablet, or laptop on which you are reading this.)
Where are you today when it comes to prayer?
Do you kind of like praying the way you pray today? Great! Keep it up.
If you’re struggling, though… and think to yourself, “I know it’s good to pray… but sometimes… it’s just… hard…” would you consider using this little timer method?
Maybe you know it’d be good to pray for your kids… but sometimes you struggle to do so. Set a timer for five minutes… or ten minutes or fifteen (warning, don’t push too far… keep it short at first) then pray for that time. And that’s it.
Want to see something good happen in your marriage? Set a timer and pray.
Single and wanting a spouse? Set a timer and pray.
Want something good to grow in your life? Set a timer and pray.
Want to express gratitude to God? Set a timer and thank Him for everything you can think of for five minutes.
Want to tell God He’s great? Set a timer and do so.
I can tell you from experience that the only way to grow this prayer muscle is bit by bit… and with little ends in sight.
(And, honestly, it can apply to time spent reading the Bible, too…)
Thanks to God who shows us grace as we grow little by little, over time.
And thanks to Ally Love who kept me on that weird little bike for 30 full minutes, five minute chunks at a time.