In the Dailies

Why is it so hard to pray?

There are so many things weighing heavily on my heart this week, things I know need prayer. Sick friends, unbelieving family members, marriages — upcoming ones, sustaining ones, breaking ones. (Is anyone else out there grief-stricken over Jon & Kate? I could barely stomach the season premiere this week.) Our nation needs prayer: our politicians, our diplomats, our soldiers, our culture. As the school year comes to a close I want to pray for our kids, our teachers, our summers. So many things! And yet I find it extremely difficult to pray longer than two consecutive sentences.

Maybe praying isn’t the difficult part. Maybe my trouble is the stopping part.

Photo courtesy dreamstime.com

I’ve written about the ineffectiveness of multi-tasking before. It makes us forgetful (because we’re trying to remember too many things at once), distracted (because we’re trying to do too much at once), and ugly in our people skills (because we’re more focused on productivity than relationships). I ascribe to all these things! I know they’re true. I preach them. Yet I have difficulty stopping.

I pray while in the shower, claiming it’s the only place I’m uninterrupted by family needs, but even then I interrupt myself with to-do lists, grocery lists and random thoughts about blogging. I try to blog, but get distracted by thoughts about writing, gardening and what I should wear to swim lessons later this morning. I try to play with my kids but bring my Kindle in case they get bored with me or I get bored with Duck, Duck, Goose and the repetitive swing-pushing. While making dinner, I clean the kitchen, run another load of laundry, catch up with friends on the phone and help the kids finish a puzzle. No wonder my meals are never perfect and my prayer life is dehydrated!

The other day Kellie posted a rest challenge. She calls it S.IESTA!: Stop. Intentionally Establishing Stillness Takes Action. Her purpose is to, over the summer, routinely rest for a set period of time each day, to stop whatever she and her kids are doing and take a break. Now, I don’t have trouble resting. I read all. the. time. I watch tv with my hunky spouse every night, and I play with the kids every afternoon. Rest comes easily to me. Prayer, however, requires a stop. I want to be more intentional with my prayer life. Yes, I pray regularly now, but how much better could it be if I were more purposeful? How much more of what God is doing could I witness if I scheduled time to just talk with Him each day? I don’t mean reading His Word. Anything that involves reading I do with a voracious appetite.  But praying. Can I stop — really STOP — each day to pray?

What about you? What can you be more intentional about this summer?