Introduction
Meeting with God in daily private prayer has always been a vital
habit for the Christian disciple. Jesus’ example, each morning alone
with the Father, and his instruction ‘go into your room, shut the door
and pray to your Father in secret’ stands as the model for Christian
private prayer. A daily time with God is still as important as ever for
a Christian to rise to the challenge of our time, or to face the personal
pressures of suffering and temptation. This book provides a ‘Daily
Office’ for personal prayer, morning and evening, in 28 forms.
Forms for daily prayer have been used for most of Christian history,
drawing on the Jewish synagogue liturgy of psalms and prayers. Such
practice has been called The Daily Office, The Divine Hours, Forms of
Prayer and in other traditions The Quiet Time, or more simply ‘daily
devotions’. Early in the story of Christian monastic communities hours
for prayer and psalm singing over the whole day and night developed
into The Daily Office. The Office was sometimes adapted for the personal
use of those outside the monasteries. In the period of the Reformation the
practice of individual private prayer, especially in the morning, developed
substantially and a number of leading figures wrote out Forms of Prayer
to encourage discipline and to illustrate method. Many such books exist
today designed to assist private prayer, while some traditions commend
free and unwritten daily prayer, particularly in the Pentecostal and other
nonconformist churches. The two approaches are not in conflict however.