What’s the point in saying a written prayer?  Isn’t it just a dead act?  If it ain’t your own words that you made up on the spot, how could it possibly be from the heart?

Loads of Christians are suspicious of written prayer and liturgy, as if the Holy Spirit couldn’t possibly work in something that was thought out beforehand or written by someone else.

It should come as no surprise that by-the-book John Wesley was actually more suspicious of extemporaneous prayer.  He believed that the Daily Office morning, midday and evening prayers in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer were necessary for rounding out the Christian’s prayer life.  We have a tendency to deceive ourselves, and when the only prayers we pray come from our own hearts, we run the risk of praying only what we want.

In other words, written prayers have the power to transform our prayer lives to be more full.  So pray extemporaneously, but don’t give up the liturgical prayers, for they have great power to transform those who take them to heart.

But it doesn’t stop there.  In his Sermon On Christian Perfection, Wesley saw a life that was so formed by love for God and others that every part of life became a prayer to God, whether you were conscious of it or not.  Praying without ceasing happens in the life that makes every desire to please God.