Trevin Wax on the Praying through the Life of Jesus in 30 Days

In this conversation, Trevin Wax talks about his book Life of Jesus in 30 Days and the prayer journey it offers. He explains the inspiration behind the book and the structure of the prayer journey, which involves praying three times a day. Trevin emphasizes the importance of punctuating the day with prayer and the compounding effect of regular prayer. He also discusses the benefits of engaging with different genres of Scripture in prayer and the importance of blending structure and spontaneity. Finally, Trevin addresses the challenges of busyness and distractions, offering encouragement to maintain prayer discipline.

Trevin Wax is vice president of research and resource development at the North American Mission Board and a visiting professor at Cedarville University. A former missionary to Romania, Trevin is a regular columnist at The Gospel Coalition and has contributed to The Washington Post, Religion News Service, World, and Christianity Today, which named him one of 33 millennials shaping the next generation of evangelicals. He has served as general editor of The Gospel Project and has taught courses on mission and ministry at Wheaton College. He is the author of multiple books, including The Thrill of Orthodoxy, Rethink Your Self, This Is Our Time, and Gospel Centered Teaching.


SHOW NOTES: https://www.aaronshamp.com/podcast/trevin-wax-prayer


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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the conversation
01:36 The inspiration behind the book 'Life of Jesus'
04:07 The structure and purpose of the prayer journey
05:21 The significance of praying three times a day
08:19 The benefits of punctuating the day with prayer
10:09 The compounding effect of regular prayer
11:28 The importance of structure and spontaneity in prayer
17:01 The value of engaging with different genres of Scripture
23:28 The benefits of blending different genres in prayer
35:04 Dealing with busyness and maintaining prayer disciplines
41:08 Overcoming distractions and making time for prayer
42:44 Challenges of Distraction and Temptation
43:32 Reorienting Ourselves to God
43:45 Becoming More Like Jesus
44:42 Revolutionizing Prayer Life
45:11 Recommendation and Conclusion


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Track: Perseverance — Land of Fire [Audio Library Release]
Music provided by Audio Library Plus​
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Creators & Guests

Host

Aaron M. Shamp

Host of Filter

Guest

Trevin Wax

VP of Research & Resource Development at @NAMB_SBC - Visiting professor at Cedarville University - Columnist @TGC - Author of "The Thrill of Orthodoxy"

What is Filter: Biblical Clarity in a Confusing World?

Our world can be confusing. Many of us are looking for clarity in how to think about the many topics and problems in our culture. In 'Filter,' Aaron Shamp engages the questions we all face in conversation with expert guests. This show provides you with biblical clarity for our confusing world so that you can face the chaos of life with wisdom, integrity, and courage.

Aaron Shamp (00:02.178)

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Filter. On this show, we recognize that the world can be a confusing place to live in. And so what I seek to do on this show is to equip you to live with biblical clarity in our confusing world so that you can face the chaos of life with wisdom, integrity, and courage. Today, I'm glad to welcome back to the show Trevin Wax. Trevin is the Vice President of Research and Resource Development at the North American Mission Board and a visiting professor at Cedarville University. A former missionary to Romania, Trevin.

is a regular columnist at the Gospel Coalition and has contributed to the Washington Post, Religion, News Service, World, and Christianity Today, which named him one of the 33 Millennials shaping the next generation of evangelicals. He has served as general editor of the Gospel Project and has taught courses on mission and ministry at Wheaton College. He is the author of multiple books, including The Thrill of Orthodoxy, Rethink Yourself, This Is Our Time, and Gospel Center Teaching. Trevin, welcome back to the show.

Trevin Wax (01:04.691)
Glad to be on, Aaron. Thanks for having me.

Aaron Shamp (01:07.026)
Yeah, glad to have you back on. I think we had you on just a little over a year ago to talk about the thrill of Orthodoxy. And that was a fun episode and I really enjoy your writing. And so I appreciate the work you've done over the years. And so it's great to have you back on today. We're talking about your newest book or as you were telling me a moment ago, a book that you feel like isn't yours. But when you put together, you can explain that to us here in a second called The Life of Jesus or Life of Jesus.

30 days. Talk to us about this book, what it's about and what inspires you to write it.

Trevin Wax (01:42.915)
So this is the second in a series. Back, I guess to make the short story long on this, I think back in 2019 actually, I started a prayer journey of going through the Psalms in a month, Psalms in 30 days. And I followed the breakdown of the Psalms, the way that it's been put together for centuries in the Book of Common Prayer.

And I but I wanted to do a three times a day instead of a two times a day reading so I would have a morning a midday and an afternoon You know just time of prayer where I would be going through all of the psalms in a month that has been a discipline for the church for a long time of the christians for Centuries and centuries now have found a lot of spiritual fruit in praying through the psalms in a month um, but you know the psalms and a lot of times you'll hear people say oh just do five psalms a day and a

Aaron Shamp (02:20.962)
Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (02:39.947)
you know, you'll be able to get through them all, which is true. But the Psalms aren't all the same length. So five Psalms a day when Psalm 119 is thrown in there is going to take you a long time. Right. So I was thinking through, okay, how do I break these down in such a way? So I followed the Book of Common Prayer way of doing it, but I was like, I want to do it three times a day. And I want to put together a prayer journey that has sort of a liturgical structure, like a daily, what's called a daily office.

that will keep me praying a lot. Like will actually have me, you know, on my knees before the Lord every day, three times a day. And so I worked on that in the fall of 2019 and started doing it and loved it. And then when COVID hit, it was one of the biggest blessings of the COVID season. Because you know that during that time, during the lockdowns and everything, here we are, I mean, basically everybody's stuck at home or, you know, just, you know, in a certain...

Aaron Shamp (03:31.363)
Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (03:39.203)
place or sphere. And so having like marking out the days with a three times a day rhythm was really good. And so about that time is when I kind of revised it a bit and then we wound up putting it out in 2021. And then Life of Jesus in 30 days was the next iteration. I was like, so if we can do that for the Psalms, surely we can do that for the Gospels as well. And so the idea was, and I'm working now on Letters of Paul actually, which will come out next year.

So this is a way of, okay, how do I do it? I could deep dive into the gospel accounts of Jesus, but not just to read through the gospels in a month, but to read through all the major stories and events in Jesus's life and His teaching, but to do so in a way that is constructed around praying. And so it follows the same pattern as the Psalms in 30 days in that, you know, there's a liturgical structure to it, and we can get into that a little more as we go if you want.

Aaron Shamp (04:28.695)
Hmm.

Trevin Wax (04:37.527)
But that's the idea. It's not just a devotional. It's a prayer journey that intends to have us be saturated in scripture in a way that leads us to respond with prayer.

Aaron Shamp (04:52.082)
Yeah, that's great. So you mentioned a few times how you were wanting to do something, even back when you were kind of just starting to work on this for your own devotionals, you were wanting to do something that would give you the opportunity to pray through the Psalms three times a day. And in the book you have it broken down into morning, midday, and evening reading. So following that three times a day pattern, what is the significance of that? Why three times a day? Why those three times a day? Is it just

that's what it is, there's really no significance to it, or is there kind of a deeper reason for that pattern?

Trevin Wax (05:28.407)
Well, there's, I mean, you can find, you know, you can find biblical precedent for this. The psalmist often talks about evening, morning, and midday. And the reason that the psalmist usually starts with evening is because the Jewish mindset is sundown is the beginning of the next day, right? So you can, you see the psalmist talking about, you know, evening, morning, and midday, or noonday, you know, with a lament to God or taking our concerns to God.

So you have this in the Old Testament as well. You have the pattern of ritual praying, even in someone you see like Daniel, who went to the same spot every day and would pray. And this is what got him in trouble, of course, and got him thrown in the lion's den. But you would see that there was that ritualistic aspect you can find in the scriptures. You see patterns of praying, even in the gospels, obviously, Jesus in the early morning, you know, sometimes at night praying. So...

So you've got this throughout the scriptures, but then you've got the witness of church history on this. So I've got on my shelf back here, the Didache, which is one of the earliest Christian documents outside of the New Testament, and something of a manual of discipleship, basically, that comes from the early second century AD. And it's fascinating to look at what is in there and what's not in there. Like that manual is fascinating for a lot of reasons. There's a lot of the Sermon on the Mount that's sort of repurposed.

in there. There's a lot of stuff about, you know, refraining from sexual immorality, from greed, all sorts of stuff. But what's fascinating is the instruction of the earliest Christians as they were, you know, instructing the people they were baptizing or had just been baptized, they would tell them, you pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day. I mean, that was like, that's just like a non-negotiable for the early church. The early Christians were like, yes, this is, you know, make sure you pray the Lord's Prayer, what, you know, our Father, what God gave us, what Jesus gave us.

Aaron Shamp (07:14.028)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (07:23.171)
pray that three times a day. So even there in the early church, you find this pattern of three times a day praying. And of course, that gets extended out. So if you look at like the monastic traditions and whatnot, you'll find seven times a day prayer where like, you know, where it'll go through and like, there's all these different hours of praying and you pray certain things at certain times and whatnot. I'm not trying to like recreate that level of intensity of praying, you know, that many times a day where you wake yourself up in the middle of the night to pray and whatnot.

But I thought, okay, morning prayer, easy enough for most people. I mean, like, if that's what you wanna start your day with, that's making a conscious decision. I'm not gonna reach for my phone. I'm gonna reach for my Bible or my prayer book first. Evening prayer right before I go to bed or around the time I'm gonna go to bed, that makes a lot of sense. It's a lot of times you're in the same vicinity. But I think there is something special about a midday prayer. And you'll see in my resources, both in Psalms and in Life of Jesus, the midday prayer is not as long.

Aaron Shamp (08:11.798)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (08:19.859)
as the morning and the evening structure, but it's because you don't you obviously a lot of times when people tell me I have a harder time with a midday one just because so much is going on. But there is something special I think about punctuating your day with prayer, you know, in the middle of the day at some point, whether it's noon, whether it's two o'clock, you know, if you get to it, you know, right when you finish work or maybe right after lunch or something before you start your next part of the day, there is something even if it's only five minutes just.

Reorienting yourself once again in the middle of the day that I find really Powerful over time, especially so that's kind of the idea It's kind of a mix of you've got some biblical precedent. You've got the early church You've got the monastic traditions and then you've got you know, the book of common prayer and you've got other Traditions that lead us to this kind of thinking through How many times a day and why?

Aaron Shamp (09:11.518)
Yeah, I think that, you know, many of us today in the American Church aren't very historically minded unless you come from, you know, a couple of different denominations, but most of us aren't. And so I think for probably a lot in the audience, this idea of having these three offices of the day, you know, as it's referred to sometimes, that we go to in prayer, it is probably a new idea. I think a lot of us were raised with the idea of, well, you should have like a morning devotion where you pray and then you probably should pray a little bit before you go to sleep.

maybe you pray before a meal, but this structure of praying three times a day at these daily offices, it's probably new for a lot of us. As you've practiced it, what was the value that you saw in it beyond just those three, those three moments? In other words, did the structure of praying three times a day, do you think that it has this effect that goes beyond those, those three specific times to the rest of our days, our weeks and just the way that we approach life?

Trevin Wax (10:10.735)
Absolutely. I mean, you think about the way that you start your day is structured somehow already, right? So I mean, generally, when we think of three times a day, we think about food, right? We think about eating, we think I'm going to eat in the morning, I'm going to eat at lunchtime, I'm going to eat in the evening, like my I don't know about you, but my day, more than I probably want to admit it is structured around when the next meal is and what is going to be and where I'm going to go and what you know what I'm going to eat. You know, what my wife has cooking or what's going on. So

Aaron Shamp (10:21.398)
Hmph. Mm-hm.

Aaron Shamp (10:36.04)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (10:40.339)
We do structure our days anyway. And the three times a day pattern we generally use for food, well, why not do that for spiritual food? Is my question. So I guess my question is, if we're already orienting our day around physical sustenance, then what better way of adding into the structure of our day the reminder of our need for, you know, that we don't live on bread alone, for spiritual sustenance?

And so having that sort of Bible intake three times a day, I do think, I think over time is powerful. It's not that you're gonna feel a lightning bolt of inspiration every time you kneel to pray and you read the reading for the morning or the evening or the midday, but it's doing something. It's saying something, just like not every meal that you have at home is a feast. You're gonna, sometimes it's like a little snack or sometimes you eat a little bit, but it still sustains you, right? It keeps you. And so...

Aaron Shamp (11:24.962)
Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (11:38.495)
And so I think there's something about it since you already have structure in your day, why not just structure your day at some level around prayer? And like make it just for me. I don't know about you, but like I have like I've always struggled to pray regularly like to make sure that I don't like actually going before the Lord and I'm like recognizing my dependence on him. And you know, Paul says pray continually. That's not easy. Pray without ceasing. Like what does that mean? Like I?

Aaron Shamp (12:06.367)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (12:07.091)
I don't know everything Paul means by that, but surely me putting myself on my knees in that sort of posture of prayer three times a day is one way of getting me closer to what that is, of ensuring that days are not going to slip by without me going before the Lord. For me, that's where the structure really comes in and helps. If we can structure ourselves around cleaning up in the morning or like...

brushing our teeth before, you know, when we wake up and before we go to bed or whatnot. We have all these rituals already. We should make sure that prayer is one of them. And I think we tend to downplay the power of that because we think that the spirit only moves through spontaneity. But I think we ought to recognize the spirit also moves through structure. And it doesn't mean that the structure necessarily is itself what is gonna make the spirit, you know, speak to us. It's...

Aaron Shamp (12:43.723)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (13:02.023)
It's a way of hoisting the sails and then trusting that the wind will blow.

Aaron Shamp (13:06.346)
Yeah, it's a way of making sure that you can continue going in prayer. Because without intentionality, that usually means that you just don't. Or at least, I think for most people, yeah.

Trevin Wax (13:09.868)
That's right.

Trevin Wax (13:14.739)
Yes, and you know a lot of people a lot of Yeah, I mean a lot of people erin I think struggle with prayer which is where I think the structure comes in um and can help But you know even then I don't want people to feel guilty or like it's legalistic or like if oh if they miss the midday Reading today. Oh my goodness. They didn't get their prayer in or you know, they forgot one morning when they woke up to start the day in prayer like There there's all sorts of ways that you know, you kind of pick back up and you keep just like sometimes you miss a meal Are you know, they're just?

Aaron Shamp (13:37.164)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (13:44.535)
There's no like thou shalt from the Lord on this, but I do think that there's something special about just reserving time. You know, if you do this, if you do Psalms in 30 days or Life of Jesus in 30 days, between the three periods of time, you'll be praying basically 30 minutes a day. Thirty minutes sounds like a lot for a lot of people, right? Because they're just like, I mean, I don't know when I could sit down. I run out of stuff to say after like five minutes, you know.

This helps you pray for 30 minutes a day. Now it's not 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the evening, it's just, it's maybe 10 minutes in the morning, 10, 15 minutes in the morning, 10 to 12, 15 minutes in the evening, and then maybe five to 10 minutes in the midday. So if you do that, you're praying 30 minutes a day, it's just broken up over three times. And I found it to be extraordinarily helpful, and I can't even imagine now my spiritual life without.

Aaron Shamp (14:42.142)
Yeah, and I think that a lot of us, once again, and this would be myself included, we were raised with people held up to be admired who had like these two hour prayer sessions every morning, which is amazing if you can do that. The ones who would get up at 4 a.m. to read and pray and be with God for two hours or so, and that was always held up as like, this is what your goal should be.

And like you said, many of us struggle to stay focused in prayer beyond just 10 minutes. We forget that historically, this was common to have multiple short times throughout the day that you were reoriented back towards God, you were immersed in Scripture, you were going in prayer. Because I think that we discount, the way that I look at it is like compounding interest. I think that we discount the compounding effect of these regular

intentional short times of going to the Lord in prayer, in Scripture, and the effect that they can have in the long run. Like you said, doing this may not give you this huge spark of inspiration every single time at your midday or your evening prayer, but doing it consistently over time, it has a compounding effect. You will find yourself over time eventually becoming someone who is, it becomes more of a natural instinct to pray to the Lord.

before you're going into a stressful meeting, whenever you're stuck in traffic, whenever you're at the grocery store, you've got some anxieties weighing on the back of your mind. You will, you'll find yourself more quickly going to the Lord in prayer, even if it's just a short prayer of, Lord help me, Lord be with me, than you did before, because you're building that habit of bringing your mind back to God's presence.

Trevin Wax (16:32.983)
Yeah, I mean, there is something about the compound effect of that. I mean, if you pray the Psalms every month, that kind of changes you. You start to feel what the words are that you're praying from the psalmist. The psalmist, his relentless God-centeredness, his thirst and hunger for justice, his recognition of his need for

Aaron Shamp (16:51.063)
Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (17:01.823)
God, his looking back at the past faithfulness of God, his lamenting everything wrong with the world, his desire to see God do what God has promised to do. Like all of that begins to seep into just the way you see the world over time. And I think the same is true with this life of Jesus in 30 days. I mean, there's nothing like encountering Jesus three times a day. It's 90 times over.

a 30-day period where you're going to deliberately put yourself in a posture of hearing from your king. Like, that's the idea. And I mean, you can do that with just the Gospels. You don't need the prayer guide to do that. I do think there is something to be said about the structure even of a prayer time, which is part of what I'm doing with these resources is that they're deliberately intended to take us through the Scriptures in a way that—

Aaron Shamp (17:35.758)
Mm, yeah.

Trevin Wax (17:57.495)
that leads us to pray alongside of others. So for example, if you're doing the life of Jesus in 30 days, the morning and the evening prayer times are a little longer and they have like in the morning, you have a confession of faith. So you may recite a portion of the Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed or from, there's a confession of faith, a Protestant confession of faith that I pull from sometimes, or maybe it's something from scripture, Philippians two talking about Jesus emptying himself and becoming a...

taking the form of a servant, you know, so all of that, that may be something that that's there's a confession of faith in the morning. In the evening, there's a confession of sin may come from, you know, Psalm 51 from the scriptures or it could come from, you know, just historic someone throughout church history, a confession of sin that's been used in the church before. So you have that you have those elements. And then in the morning and the evening, you also have what we put in there as a canticle. It's a song from scripture. And what I love to do in one of the one of the

most exciting things for me when I'm going through the life of Jesus in 30 days is I picked particular songs or canticles from the Old Testament that correspond at some level with what's happening in the gospel reading for that morning or evening. So, you know, if there's a canticle where you see some theme from Isaiah being fulfilled in the life of Jesus, that's the song that you sing right before or after you go to that reading. The same thing is true with, you know, a psalm. If there's a...

Aaron Shamp (19:09.466)
Hmm.

Trevin Wax (19:24.391)
a particular Psalm that corresponds at some level with what it is that you're reading. It's not a close one-to-one correlation all the time, but so often we see the gospel writers, we see Jesus himself looking back to Isaiah, looking back to the prophets, looking back to the psalmist as they're telling the story of Jesus. So there's something about, you know, combining these scriptures to where you really begin to see how they flow together. And the other thing, and the thing that people, Aaron,

talk to me most about that they tell me is the biggest surprise. It's not the Psalms. It's not the Gospels. Most of the time, people that are picking up a prayer journey like this are somewhat familiar with those things. They say, man, I am blown away by some of the prayers from the church because in the morning, in the evening sessions, there's always we'll use a prayer from the church. It may be from like a, you know, a more liturgical book, like the book of common prayer or something like that. But a lot of times it's, you know, it's a prayer from Augustine or it's a

Aaron Shamp (20:01.142)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shamp (20:06.2)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (20:20.243)
and a prayer from Anselm or a prayer from someone throughout church history. And I've been kind of collecting these that have really moved me over the years for more than 20 years now. And to be able to put them into a resource like this to where suddenly you're praying, you're lifting your voice along with Charles Spurgeon or with John Wesley or like Jane Austin is in there. Like there's some...

There's different people throughout history who have composed these beautiful, passionate prayers. And, you know, when you lift your voice and you join your voice to the, the Christians who have gone before us, I like to compare it to like, you know, a kid trying on your mom or dad's shoes way up in the closet, you know, like you're, you're kind of clunking around in daddy's shoes and just wondering, are my feet ever going to get that big, you know, that I'm going to be able to like.

Aaron Shamp (21:11.762)
Hmm.

Trevin Wax (21:16.535)
fill these shoes. It's kind of like that you read these prayers from people who have gone before us. And it's sometimes people are like, I don't even know how you could pray a written prayer, because it's not your heart, not your words. But that's the whole point. It's it's you want your heart to align with that heart, you want your words to be able at some point you want to grow into the spiritual stature to be able to pray something like that. And so what better way than to practice right then to

Aaron Shamp (21:16.607)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (21:45.511)
know, it's what we do when we're kids. We mimic what our moms and dads say. Well, that's what we do in the faith as well. And so that's the idea of having that structure, you know, to where there's, it's the, you work through the gospels, but you've got this structure, this path that's meant to guide you as you walk, as you go through the life of Jesus.

Aaron Shamp (21:50.582)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shamp (22:06.971)
Yeah, that's great. And I was wanting to talk to you about those historical prayers, so I'm glad that you brought those up. But one thing that I'm kind of reflecting on is you're talking about how, and I appreciate this in the book, but just appreciate it more hearing you talk about it, how there's a lot of genres of literature sprinkled throughout even just the day-to-day of this book. There's the narrative of the Gospels, the

the references to Old Testament and the songs that come from different poetry sections, prophecy sections. There's prayer, there's confession. So, you have a lot of genres all mixed together in here. And so, I think you'll appreciate this question because you're a Word guy. What is the benefit for us intellectually and spiritually of soaking in multiple different genres of Word?

of words through this because I think a lot of the time we get one in a devotional time. It's usually, well, if it's a Psalm, it's a Psalm. If it's a gospel, it's a gospel. If it's a letter, it's a letter. But we're getting a lot here. And so, I think there's something really unique about that. So, can you unpack that for us? And was there some intentional goals behind blending those genres together and how that can benefit us?

Trevin Wax (23:28.419)
Well, the way I think about it is, you know, I don't know that I would say there was intentionality around blending the genres as much as it is, this is the Bible we've got. I mean, the Bible blends the genres. Like you look at the Bible and you find historical narrative, you find, you know, love poems, you find songs, Proverbs, you know, wisdom literature, apocalyptic.

languages in apocalyptic genre. The gospels are, you know, biographical narrative with a worshipful orientation all their own. Then you've got, you know, the letters of Paul, you've got letters in the Old Testament as well. So I think the way I just, the Bible itself, God gave us his inspired word through these different genres, and I just assume they all matter. Like they all matter. There's

Aaron Shamp (24:08.334)
Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (24:24.955)
It's like it's a great example would be you have the historical narrative of what takes place when the children of Israel crossed through the Red Sea and Then right after that you've got the song of Miriam and all the Israelites when they poetically sing about how God defeated for them Pharaoh's armies and how they crossed over into over the Red Sea. So

So, I mean, it's right there, like right back to back. You've got two different genres that are going over the same kind of material. And so I just think there's something to be said about how our imaginations need to be, you know, ignited by the different genres that are out there. And so in my putting together the prayer journey, I think there's something special about, you know, you read the gospel reading right after you've...

Aaron Shamp (25:06.975)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (25:21.411)
sung an Old Testament song that's foretelling the coming of Jesus or what Jesus is going to be like or what Jesus is going to do with it, you know, through his people or whatnot. And then, you know, and then following that up by a prayer of the church, other Christians who have gone before us who believe the same things that we believe as we come to this text, you know, responding in faith with others. And then, you know, and I just

We talked a lot about structure. I just do want to say there is a place both in the morning and the evening prayer that is it's called intercessions of personal requests where I mean, I do it every single time is I'm I pray for whatever's top of mind I bring to the Lord my personal requests. I'm interceding for other people. I've got people that I'm praying through right now. I'm doing an interim pastor at a at a church here locally and I'm praying. I pray through a page of the directory every time I get through there. I'm praying for, you know, these precious church members that I'm getting to serve right

Um, so there and that's all spontaneous. It's not written down It's not just so there is a place where I think where we just come and we just talk with the lord and we just Commune with him and we bring our petitions and our requests to him um, but I think I think that spontaneity works really well in an overarching structure that has like you mentioned These different kinds of genres that we see in the bible anyway that we want to lift up in our in the way we pray

Aaron Shamp (26:26.568)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shamp (26:46.802)
Yeah, I think a blend of structure and spontaneity is where you really see great things happen. Because I often tell people, once again, to kind of make sure we don't overcorrect here on the structure side. I often tell people whenever they're in like a longer period of praying, whether it's a devotion, maybe it's a once a week where they go for a walk, a longer walk and pray, and they often say, well, I have such a hard time not allowing my mind to wander.

What I often tell people is, well, just allow your mind to wonder and talk to God about wherever it's going. Because I've experienced, and I know other people have too, that whenever you do that, very often I think that the Spirit is leading you to something He wants to reveal to you. You know, that's happened to me before where I'm on a walk or in a long time of prayer and I don't fight those wandering thoughts, but instead I just kind of see it as like, okay, me and the Lord are following something here. There's something on my heart that I, maybe even I don't realize it, but I need to talk to Him about.

And it's brought some different times, you know, not always, but it's brought some great moments of God revealing something to me that was going on in my heart that I didn't realize or giving me an answer to something that I was wrestling with. And so, and so yeah, you know, there is room for spontaneity in there. But once again, I think that it's most likely to be powerful spontaneity whenever it happens within that structure.

because you have been training yourself to be open and receptive to God's presence, to the Spirit's leading, and then that allows that spontaneity to actually lead somewhere that's fruitful.

Trevin Wax (28:26.471)
Yeah, I love that idea of, you know, paying attention to where your mind is wandering. And there's a little bit of a, you know, if a kid's wandering away, you know, and as a father, sometimes you got to go like, you know, follow off, follow them off where they're wandering or bring them back or to kind of ask why they're wandering out there. But there's something about following your wanderings with prayer, like letting your prayer chase where your wandering is going. And then there's also something to be said, though, if you get too far afield, just, you know, kind of bringing yourself back to whatever path you want to be on as you want to.

Aaron Shamp (28:53.08)
Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (28:54.775)
So I love that. I think there's, I think we've got to depressurize somewhat the feeling of, you know, the constant, hey, this is what a successful prayer life looks like. I mean, like you talk about, you know, the people that got up and prayed for two hours every morning or whatnot. I mean, I love stories like that, but sometimes they make everyone feel like a failure. You know, like I, and I get that, and I realize even with, you know, praying 30 times

you know, 30 days in a row, three times a day is 90 periods of prayer. Okay. That is a lot for people that are not used to this kind of structure. And so I even say in the introduction on this, uh, don't beat yourself up. If you, you know, have an entire day where you go without doing this or you miss one of the readings or you like, it's kind of like, um, you know, it looks kind of like workout coaches will tell you, you get, you know, you want to get your reps in.

But you, but you don't necessarily like to, if you, if you fall off the, the wagon a day or whatever, and you don't get any reps in, well, then don't like, Oh my goodness, I failed. I can't, I, you know, I can't go on. Like it's, it's not that kind of a thing. This is the kind of thing. It's a spiritual exercise. No, it's a spiritual exercise for some people, the idea of even doing what we've been talking about where it's, you know, 30 minutes a day stretched out over three spans is just going to seem, it would be like telling someone.

You know, I want you to do a three minute plank and you've never prepared for that, you know, or drop and do, you know, 30 pushups or 30 pushups or whatever. Like for someone who's not even trained to do five or 10. So I just want to tell people, Hey, just get going, get going at the pace that you can work your way up to this. If you can't do it the first 30 days, that's fine. You know, like take depressurize this. This is a, this is about.

Aaron Shamp (30:33.363)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (30:48.499)
I think we all share the same heart here. It's about coming to know the Lord and better, and it's wanting to grow in our relationship with Him. It's wanting to get closer to what Paul is talking about when he talks about praying continually. If we beat ourselves up every time our minds wander, or every time we miss a prayer time or whatnot, that's not the kind of Father we're praying to anyway. The Father delights to hear from us. The Father wants to commune with us. I like to tell people,

know, that when you pray, and I do recommend a specific space that you that you hallow, that you sanctify in your home, where this is kind of the place that you will go for at least a couple of those prayer times, you know, where, you know, if you want to light a candle that has a certain fragrance, or if you want to have like a particular nook or someplace or a couch or a particular chair or a desk or whatever it might be, where that's where that your prayer like incense

There's something really special about space here because I like to tell people you will pray more when you realize That when you come before the lord in prayer You are praying to your father and he is right there You are pressed up against a thin space between this dimension and heaven and heaven's not some far away distant place It's a different dimension that we are not able to see or to hear But it's right there and you are right pressed up against that thin space and we know

that we have the Spirit praying through us, and we have our older brother Jesus, who's also interceding for us, right next to us. So if you think about prayer in that way, if you really think about what the Bible teaches about what's going on in this moment of prayer, I think you'll be much more inclined to do so rather than if you think of it as simply an obligation, simply checking off a box, simply something that you're trying to get through, that you're beating yourself up about because you don't feel like you're doing it well.

Aaron Shamp (32:18.301)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shamp (32:39.034)
Yeah, that's good. And yeah, I just want to emphasize the point that you made about space. And that is really important. Um, not only because going to the same spot can help you build consistency. Um, you know, uh, little things like, uh, whenever you sit down to work on homework, if you're a student or a project, like putting on your headphones, putting on the same playlist just kind of helps you get into that rhythm, you know, like, like working out, you know, you got to work out playlists. It helps you get into that rhythm. But space is really important too. You know, just think.

um, to continue using the workout analogies, uh, gyms are designed in a certain way. They aren't designed to look like libraries. They are designed to, um, to make it as easy as possible for you to go in there and do the exercises you need to do. Like the space is designed for that. And it's important to remember that we're not, um, as, uh, James K Smith said in that book, what was that in the name of that book? Something about the heart habits, uh, on a camera, but he said,

Trevin Wax (33:37.859)
You are what you love. Yeah.

Aaron Shamp (33:38.942)
You are what you love. Yeah, yeah. He said we're not brains on a stick. And so one of the implications of that is that we are people who inhabit spaces and those spaces have an impact on us. They they encourage and discourage certain actions and behaviors. And so, yeah, choose that spot. And then once you choose that spot, use it for regularity to help you build that habit and then also, you know, make it beautiful or whatever you need to do that.

that continues to encourage that mindfulness of God's presence and continues to encourage that habit, whether it be with the type of chair you sit in or a bench that you kneel at. I know some people do that. You know, artwork, like you said before, a candle or a coffee, drink, whatever it is, to continue supporting that habit. One thing I always want to ask you about is, and you already touched on this, but you know, so it's a, you have a 30-day,

plan three times a day. Well, you know, what happens whenever we go through a season of busyness, just an overwhelming schedule with work or family, or we just go through a season of struggle where we're having a very hard time sticking with those normal disciplines and we feel like we're starting to slip. Do you think that something like the structure of this book and what you're trying to do here helps with that or is...

help with that something that you need that goes beyond just the specific plan that you're doing. So what's your like advice or encouragement to people for whenever they start to struggle with holding these disciplines?

Trevin Wax (35:15.843)
Right, I mean there are times when you get to be really busy, and there are times when seasons are such that you may be traveling a lot, or you may be in and out of the house, you're not in that specific space where you do this on a regular. I travel a lot, and I take my prayer book with me, but sometimes I don't have it with me in the midday, during the midday when I'm out somewhere, and so I've got to catch up that reading that night, or I skip a midday and just do the evening prayer before bed or whatever. Yeah, there are going to be seasons where...

That's just the nature of what it is. And like I said, this is a guide meant to help you. It's not meant to chain you. But I would say, although you may be really busy, sometimes too busy that you skip a meal here and there, generally we get our two or three meals a day in. So if we've got enough time to eat, we've got more time than we realize. It may mean that we gotta put the phone down and not scroll some in the evening when we're really tired or we gotta...

You know, we're going to turn off Netflix or we're going to do whatever it is that that's going on. That's you know, really You know occupying some of our time I think even in the busiest seasons that's where the structure really helps Because if you're already used to it and instinctually you're going to do it Like if you're someone who brushes your teeth twice a day If you skip a night, that's just not going to happen very often Because you already have gotten into the habit of this is what you do in the morning in the evening

Aaron Shamp (36:39.51)
Mm.

Trevin Wax (36:39.519)
The same is true with prayer. It just, eventually it just becomes part of, this is who you are, this is what you do. And so that's what you, that's where you wanna get. I think there are times when, you know, you'll miss something and I think that's to be expected. I think, you know, life is unpredictable at times and that's just the way life is. But I think we turn to the, I'm too busy, rationale way faster than we could or should.

Aaron Shamp (37:09.367)
Yeah.

Trevin Wax (37:09.927)
And I've got to kind of put it down to like, if, if at the end of the day, like, you know, I think about it with our relationships with our, with our kids or something, if basically we're saying over and over again, I'm too busy to spend time with my son, or I'm too busy to spend time with my wife, or I'm too busy to do this or that, at some point, you're like, okay, then you may be too busy. Because like that relationship really matters.

And so I think the same is true when it comes to prayer. If we're just consistently saying we're too busy to spend even a 10 minute prayer session with the Father, then I think we've gotta look at the priorities that we've set up and the structure we've already set up in our life. Because like I said, there is structure in your life. It just may not be great structure, but there's already some structure there. And so work with that structure to get to make prayer one of the pillars.

of your day. That's my exhortation in that way. And again, not in a way of saying, you must do this to be a good Christian. It's really a way of, what kind of Christian do you want to be? What kind of person has God called us to be? And what kind of father do we have that delights to meet with us? That's the goal and the intention and the heart behind putting some structure around this.

Aaron Shamp (38:07.822)
Yeah.

Aaron Shamp (38:28.794)
Yeah, that's good. I think that on the one hand, we, whenever we go through seasons like that, we need to try to figure out how do we integrate God into the busyness. And so if it is a time where, you know, this is gonna be a short season, just gotta get through it. And then on the other side, I'll have less of my plate. You know, if you have seasons of busyness, then that's okay. Like we all experienced that. If you're always busy, then like you said a moment ago, then that's a problem. But if you're going through one of those seasons, yeah.

Trevin Wax (38:55.583)
Well, but I would I would just want to say at the end of the day, though, when you pray three times a day, you move away from thinking, how do I integrate God into my busy life? And you actually start to ask the question, how do I integrate my busy life into God? Like, that's really where you want to get is you want you don't want to figure out how do I work God into my life, but how do I set the entire frame of my life within who God is and what he has called me?

Aaron Shamp (39:10.528)
Mmm. Yeah.

Trevin Wax (39:23.587)
to be and what he has done for me. And that only will happen through the practice, the habitual turning your life, you know, going before God again and again and again, that where your day is structured around this rather than trying to figure out how to fit this into a structure you already have for your life.

Aaron Shamp (39:44.958)
Yeah, that is so good. That is so good. And that's a really convicting question to ask. Am I trying to fit God into my busyness or allow life to fit wherever else around God? That's good. Yeah, I think another thing is that we often use busyness as an excuse to not go into that time where there's going to be quiet, there's going to be space, and the anxieties that we're holding.

down at the bottom of our heart are going to be allowed to bubble up. You know, I think we often use the busyness and the distractions of everything going on in social life or on digital media, streaming apps, social media apps. We're using all that stuff really as a distraction to stay away from that quiet place where the Lord can start to reveal some things in our heart, convict us of sin or where we have to face.

the anxieties, the doubts that were hiding down beneath the surface. I really think that's what's happening a lot of the time because as you said before, we make time to eat. We make time for the things that are important for us, even if it's a little bit of time. Every parent knows that sometimes you put the kids to bed and you just have a little bit of time for each other before you've got to go to bed yourself. But you make time for it.

One thing that I would encourage people to do is to turn on the screen time feature on your phone. Even if you're not putting limits on it, just turn on the feature for a month so that you can see, you know, and actually quantify the amount of time that you're spending on your phone, on social media, whatever else it is, you know, and then ask yourself, okay, do I really not have time? Do I really not have 30 minutes a day?

to spin in prayer because I have my mind turned on and every week it sends me a notification and every week is very convicting.

Trevin Wax (41:45.727)
Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. And I think we have more opportunities for distraction today, but it's not like that as a new temptation. It's fascinating to me to like, one of the things you read even from someone like Blaise Pascal in the 1600s, as he talks about one of humanity's chief problems is the inability to sit quietly in a room alone with our thoughts, right? And I'm thinking, boy, they didn't even have phones back then. What were they so distracted by? But we...

Aaron Shamp (42:08.553)
Mm-hmm.

Trevin Wax (42:14.623)
We find things to distract ourselves with and I read a book last year or earlier this year actually about The the challenges that particular, you know monks have had over the years and monasteries and whatnot So here you have people who have dedicated their entire lives to study reflection prayer and whatnot and the amount of energy that they talk about having to expend in trying to keep their minds on track on trying to avoid the wandering the restlessness the

Aaron Shamp (42:44.022)
Hmm.

Trevin Wax (42:44.763)
Uh, it's just fascinating that even people that have devoted themselves to that are constantly facing temptation or distraction Or whatever it might be and so I don't think that's a new temptation It's just one that in our era. It's just easier and easier To to fall into distractions and to think we're being productive or to think we're just connecting or that we're you know, just Doing whatever leisure time we have and so I think we just have to challenge that and we have to

pull that back and say, okay, I know my heart is going to wander. That's the nature of my heart. I know my mind is going to wander. I know that distractions are everywhere around me. How do I reorient myself to God and His purposes? And for me, the three times a day approach is one way of re-centering myself.

Aaron Shamp (43:32.018)
Yeah, that's really good. Well, we're about to close, but before we go, do you have any last encouragements or just anything that you hope that readers will take away from the book, listeners take away from listening to this podcast?

Trevin Wax (43:45.651)
Yeah, I just, I hope that the heart of everyone listening is you want to become more like Jesus. So if you want to become more like Jesus, encountering Him, spending time in the Gospels is a great way to do that. Spending time in the Psalms is a great way to do that. That was Jesus' songbook. So whichever journey you decide to start with, whether it's Psalms in 30 days or Life of Jesus in 30 days, I hope you'll give it a shot. If you've ever

gone to prayer and you've wondered, boy, I need to pray more if you've ever felt that or you've ever felt like, I don't know what to pray. These resources will help you with that because it will give you some scriptural sustenance at the same time it will structure prayer in such a way that you are joining your voice to thousands of other people who are praying through the same songs, praying through these same Psalms that are going before the Father. And hopefully, my prayer is that it will revolutionize your prayer life the way it has mine.

Aaron Shamp (44:42.018)
That's great and I hope the same thing as well for anyone who gets the book and decides to start wherever you are, you know, start wherever you are. Even if you can't do three times a day, get it and start with the morning and evening and then read it again this year and do the three times. But start wherever you are and I hope the same thing for you guys. If you're interested in picking up a copy of the book, just go to the description down below and click on the show notes and I'll have it linked in the show notes so that you can order a copy of

Life of Jesus in 30 Days. I'll go ahead and link Trevon's other prayer book and their Psalms in 30 days so that you guys can look at both of them and pick up either one or both of them. You know, New Year's coming up soon and so I'm sure a lot of us are looking for some new resources for our devotional times and spiritual growth so I'll have both of those linked in there. But Trevon, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate you coming back on the show today. Always enjoyed when we get to talk. So thanks for coming on Filter today.

Trevin Wax (45:40.711)
Aaron, thanks for having me. Great to be here.