Going Through The Motions'

Many people attend church for reasons completely unrelated to prayer or worship. Some attend simply because they are forced by their parents or because they are looking to mingle or network. There are many secular reasons why people  choose to go to church but that doesn't mean that they can be changed despite their spiritual blindness. 

Perhaps you may have thought Church and its Traditions overly structured, kind of artificially 'put on', even tedious. Then as you practiced participating by attending services with some regularity or with renewed intent to be totally present during the services, that trying to pray turned to praying.  What once seemed contrived was now a sacred zone, reliable and true. Attending Church or reading Scriptures is a spiritual experience even when done so in a mindless way.

Prayerful running is quite literally 'going through the motions'.  With practice and effort this behavior will shape the moments where you make the shift from 'acting as if' to actually living the prayer. You will know or rather notice the shift. As you become practiced you will recognize the experience and learn to anticipate it. If you tag the experiences and use the descriptive language you will be able to give rise to this state at others times.  You will be able to tap into this proficiency.  Because our Lord has wired us for prayer for devotion for love He can utilize even the most mundane to reach us. Our Lord is not confined to Sunday mornings.