30-minute Head Centered Prayer Practices
1-2 minutes: Breath Prayer
Relax and take a deep breath. Take several minutes to quiet your mind with a breath prayer like, “I am here, You are with me.” Or “I am a human being, not a human doing.” Or “Be still, and know I am God.” Or create your own. Whisper or think the first half of the phrase on your inhale, the second half on the exhale.
2-3 minutes: Thankfulness Practice
Allow 4 or 5 things you are most thankful for to come to mind.
Spend several moments allowing yourself to think about them and sit in your gratitude with God.
10-12 minutes: Bible Reading
Prayerfully consider a book of the Bible that you would like to read through. Choose a translation you haven’t used before (or in a long time) to help the words feel fresh. Pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal his heart behind the words as you read. Acknowledge you need the enlivening that only his revelation brings.
Read 1 chapter (and 1 chapter only!). Return to any sections that impacted you especially and reread that section a few more times, slowing down and even reading it aloud.
10 minutes: Unstructured Silence or Centering Prayer (choose one); to keep yourself from being distracted by time, consider setting a timer
Consider allowing this space to be filled with an Unstructured Silence time where you allow God to be the one that sets the agenda rather than you.
Centering Prayer leads you into a state of inner stillness before the Lord, trusting that in this stillness –in this communion with the Lord –you will be changed. He will work on your heart. The evidence of this is seen in changes in your everyday life.
A word about distractions: Often when you let your mind rest in exercises like Unstructured Silence or Centering Prayer, distractions, worries, or to-do lists may pop into your head. This is nothing to be ashamed of and is part of the business of your humanity.
We find it helpful to visualize a book shelf next to the entrance of our quiet places. We can take whatever distractions come into our heads and visualize placing them on one of the shelves. That way we can collect them when we leave.
Other people find it helpful to have a notepad nearby when they are doing these practices. When distractions pop into their heads, they can write a word or two on the notepad so they don’t forget, but then reassure their mind they will come back to it when this special time is over.
2-3 minutes: Notes/Journal
As you leave your time with God, write a few sentences about the experience. Describe what you felt, sensed, tasted, smelled, saw or words or verses that God has communicated to you. If you sensed a shift inside you, record that. It’s always nice to have a record of what God is doing, but even more so, the practice of writing your experience cements it in your consciousness.