“Restless” literally means “lacking rest.” That doesn’t sound good – but in fact restlessness can be a good thing. St Augustine famously wrote in the Confessions that our hearts are restless until they rest in God; restlessness can be the spur that drives us to arise from our entrenched state of alienation and dissatisfaction to seek after what we really need.

On a more practical level, “restlessness” is an interesting word, because it covers two quite different states of mind. These two states could be described as “bad” and “good” restlessness, but actually it’s a little more complicated than that.  

The first kind is probably the one I know best – the restlessness of being tired and yet having work to do. While I’m trying to concentrate on grading papers, or paying bills, or doing the assigned reading for a class I’m taking, I’m distracted by a thousand and one things that seem more appealing than what I’m doing right now.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul gives us a bracing challenge: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Pray without ceasing! How do you even get started?

There are many ways to approach the idea of constant prayer, but one way is through the ancient spiritual discipline called praying the Daily Office. There are a number of different Offices, but the easiest ones for modern working people are Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer.

The Daily Office is a structured yet flexible format for prayer, offering a “backbone” of Scripture readings combined with a framework of traditional written prayers (most of which draw specifically on Scripture verses for their language), with “space” built in for extemporaneous, personal prayer. By making choices about what to include and what to skip, each individual can personalize the Daily Office to fit different preferences and amounts of time, from 15 minutes to... however long you want to pray!

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