About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, Acts 16:25 (ESV)

Here is another suggestion for enriching and expanding your prayer time—singing. You probably have never considered singing to be part of your prayer time. “Isn’t that part of worship time?” you may be thinking. But here we see Paul and Silas praying and singing in the jail. Scripture encourages us in “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col.3:16). There are many “songs” in the Bible that were written by Moses, David, Mary, and others that were intended to be sung in devotion to God and express praise, confession, thanksgiving and supplication.

I usually start my prayer times by singing one of the great hymns or a current praise song. That helps me focus on the Lord and it brings me into His throne room where I focus on Jesus as my Savior and Lord. Sometimes as I am prompted by a prayer I am praying, to sing a song or a psalm comes to mind and I sing again to the Lord. A Christian song is a song of joy; joy that spreads like leaven into every aspect of my life, putting all of life in an eternal perspective. But while our song is a song of joy, joy is not the focus of our song. The focus of our song, and the reason it is so joyous, is our Creator and King, our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you do not have a hymnal, I recommend you get one. There are many hymnals that each denomination publishes. There are also contemporary song books that are available. Read the lyrics of these hymns and songs and you will find that many of them are prayers that can and should be said to God to express what you wish to say but do not have the words yourself.

Another valuable source for singing are the Psalms. Many psalms have in their description at the beginning of the Psalm that is a song or it gives the tunes by which it is to be sung. We do not have a way of knowing what those tunes are today but there are hymnals that contain a “Psalter” with music to go with these Psalms. We have in the Fellowship of Ailbe bookstore “The Ailbe Psalter” (https://store.ailbe.org/product/the-ailbe-psalter/) which will give you a paraphrased version of each psalm and a familiar tune by which to sing it.

I believe that your prayer time will become more satisfying and enjoyable if you add singing to prayer time. I know that the Holy Spirit will be drawn to your singing, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 5:18-21, and He will bring this singing before God along with your prayers. When we sing songs of faith, we will be more likely to have our minds focused on things above, where Christ is seated in heavenly places.