Taking Time to Pray

If I’m being honest, prayer is one of the hardest things for me.

It should be one of the easiest, but making consistent time to sit undistracted and pray can be a challenge. However, having a consistent prayer life is one of the most important disciplines we need to cultivate.

As with many things in life, we often think until we’re ready to do it “perfectly” we shouldn’t do it. The perfect time to sit uninterrupted, the perfect notebook to write requests in. But the truth is, there will not be a perfect moment or setup. We need to just begin! Here are a few things I’ve found helpful as I try to make a habit of prayer.

Make a list

Lists are helpful in many areas of life and prayer is no different. I have found it easier to stay focused and not get distracted when I have a list of prayer requests I can focus on. As I hear of needs from family and friends, I write them down and keep the paper or notebook within easy grabbing distance.

Give thanks

Days can be dark and discouraging. At times it’s difficult to find the words to pray, even with a list. At moments like this, I begin with thankfulness. Reciting the good things God has done for me or provided helps encourage me to bring more before him and also refocuses my mind.

Routine

They say it takes 59-70 days to create a new habit. Something I have found helpful in many disciplines of life is to attach the new habit to a certain time of day or regular activity. I try to begin and end my days with prayer. Before I fall asleep, I think back on that day and ask forgiveness, praise God, bring requests and burdens. Anything about that day that pops into my mind. In the morning before I get out of bed, I give my day over to God, ask for help in certain activities, etc. Here’s another blog post I wrote about attaching prayer to something else as a reminder to pray.

evaluate the day

I realized there were moments in everyday that I was wasting. I was scrolling on my phone, sitting at my desk wondering what I should be doing, researching things I didn’t plan to buy. And I decided when I caught myself doing some mindless task that didn’t need doing, I would pray.

Often the biggest challenge to prayer is our own attitudes. We don’t want to take the time or we think it has to involve closing eyes, kneeling, etc. The truth is, prayer is for every hour of every day. This is what I Thess. 5:17 is talking about when the Bible says, “Pray without ceasing.” God knows we have tasks that need to be done. He’s not saying we need to kneel at our beds 24/7. But wherever we are, we can come before him in prayer.

How will you incorporate prayer into your daily life?

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The Growing Need for Patience

Patience, waiting, slowing down. All concepts that seem foreign to our day and age.

Everything is about instant gratification, from movies on demand to music downloads in seconds. We want what we want NOW! In fact if our computer is a little slower than normal at powering up or the Internet has to search for content, we grow frustrated and either complain or abandon the project. I’ve even seen a commercial that was advertising our impatience as a society to promote their product.

Unfortunately, impatience is not a virtue. As usual, the nature that comes to us easily is the one we need to fight against. I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to impatience. But our lives are surrounded in the necessity to stop and wait. And it's good for us to not have everything we want instantly. It makes us realize we aren't in control, that we need to work and achieve goals over time.

I have recently been convicted that I need to pray for patience. I can't just decide to wait and the struggle is over. I have to continually be seeking God's timing and will and waiting for Him to reveal what He has for me. I know what I want Him to do but it's not up to me. I think we can all remember a time in our lives when we seemed to wait forever before we saw God's leading but now looking back, we realize the timing was perfect and we would have messed it up had we charged through with our plans.

As we get closer to the new year, I've been thinking of things I want to do differently and trying to adopt good habits now to carry over. Prov. 3:5-7 doesn't necessarily say "wait" but it does talk about trust and God guiding our steps.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

We often forget verse 7 but it’s an important reminder. If we are thinking too highly of ourselves or of our ability to control a situation, we will struggle to demonstrate patience. Gardening has been a wonderful way to help me “grow” {wink, wink} in patience.

Toward the middle of spring, Tommy borrowed a tiller and over turned a section of grass in our yard. He added a metal border to set the boundary and I got on my hands and knees, filling wheelbarrows full of grass chunks that I couldn’t breakdown. I hoed the dirt, leveled it off, and started sprinkling seeds.

I had no reason or pattern to my scattering. I just wanted flowers to fill every corner. I gave the dirt and seeds a gentle sprinkle of water. Each day I wandered out and gazed at my patch of dirt. It wasn’t long before I saw a sprout but it was a weed! Pluck, out it came!

But slowly, gradually, I saw shoots that I recognized as the stalk of a zinnia or cosmos. And they slowly got taller. They gently held up buds waiting to blossom. Finally, at the end of the summer, my little corner garden was one wild expanse of color! But it took patience. And in the waiting I still needed to water the sprouts, I pulled out the weeds, I dug out the grass that slipped under the metal border.

Was it worth it? Definitely! Am I dreaming about next year’s flowers? Absolutely!

Waiting isn’t easy. It’s not a skill that is learned once and never revisited. But it is worth it.

Photo by Daniel Oberg on Unsplash

When Pain Isolates

On the whole, I’m a healthy individual.

I don’t have pressing, life threatening issues that add up to numerous doctor’s appointments. And I’m extremely thankful and don’t take that health for granted because it could be gone in a minute. 

The one thing I do struggle with is migraines. For about the last 20 years, I’ve continually dealt with headaches ranging from small throbs to extreme pain. With the passing of time, I seem to discover more things that trigger these migraines and they seem to occur with greater frequency.

One of the most difficult things for me to communicate to others is my pain. Because I’ve dealt with headaches for most of my life, I’ve learned to ‘tune out’ the smaller ones and carry on with life. That means I go to church, carry on conversations, keep playdates, basically live my schedule while being in pain. In one form or another - sometimes mild, sometimes nauseating - I get a headache four-five times a week. That’s my reality.

But I can’t let it stop my life, so I’ve learned when to push through and smile and nod and when I have to hole up alone. There are definitely times when I have to hide away in the dark bedroom with peppermint, a cold washcloth, and hot tea. But if I did that for every headache, I would never leave my house. 

However, it’s hard to describe this to others. I don’t like using headaches or migraines to ‘get out’ of things but there have been times when I haven’t been able to participate because the pain was too great. But I’ve also muscled through and gone to meetings while in pain because it was important and my headache wasn’t getting worse.

People have trouble understanding this. I guess headaches have become so commonplace for me that they have to be extremely bad to disrupt my life. But someone who doesn’t get headaches often can be completely floored with one.

I’m not minimizing anyone’s pain or saying I have the highest tolerance. What I’m trying to say is that people who deal with chronic pain of any kind often struggle to know how to describe it and how to communicate how they live with it.

No one likes admitting weakness or the inability to do things. We want to look capable of carrying on with life and what is expected of us. But in dealing with daily pain, it often means having to show a vulnerability and admit that we aren’t strong enough. It also means having to choose what we can and cannot do.

Again, I’m not writing this to complain or make you feel bad about questioning a person dealing with pain. But we do need to be gracious with each other and realize that people are sometimes dealing with unseen pain. Personally, I don’t like walking into a room and declaring I have a migraine. I don’t feel it’s necessary for everyone to know. But if a friend asks if I’m hurting or says I look like I’m in pain, I will be honest and tell them. 

If you know someone who struggles with chronic pain, when they aren’t at an event, don’t pounce on them with a hundred questions on how they could miss XYZ. Simply inquire after their wellbeing and mention they were missed. If someone cancels lunch plans, don’t assume they have some dark purpose for avoiding you. It’s possible just getting out of bed that day was an ordeal. 

Consider I Peter 4:8-10a: Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another...

Have a quiet and gentle spirit, be ready to listen. Be gracious and patient with each other.

Photo Marina Kraus by on Unsplash.

A Reminder to Pray

One of the lessons I learned last year was the importance of prayer.

Of course, I’ve always known prayer is important and vital for a Christian but there were so many days last year when all I could do was pray. I couldn’t control directly most of what bothered me about 2020 but I could bring my worries, frustrations, uncertainties, and requests before the Lord.

We so often relegate prayer to certain times; meals, before bed, when difficult things happen. And the rest of life, we just go on, doing what we need to, getting our schedule finished.

Going into 2021, I was thinking about habits and what it takes to form new ones. The internet is filled with advice on how to make new patterns a habit, how long to try before it really sets in, ways to make a habit stick, and so on. One of the more intriguing ideas I stumbled on was tying or stacking habits to things I’m familiar with doing.

The premise if that you find something you already do regularly — like putting makeup on — and attach or stack a new habit to it — like cleaning the bathroom sink. So every morning when you finish your makeup, you wipe down the sink and faucet before you go on with your day. You don’t try to think of ways to multitask these efforts; rather you give each their own time. But you keep the stacked on tasks small. Instead of cleaning the whole bathroom you just do one part. The goal is to make whatever you stacked on {in our case cleaning the sink} a natural habit.

And that was what I wanted in my prayer life. I wanted it to become a habit and part of my daily structure. But I also wanted it to be sincere. Prayer isn’t {or shouldn’t be} just something to check off a daily list. It’s talking with God. It’s seeking his wisdom and asking for his help. It’s praising him and confessing sins and verbally recognizing Who he is. And I didn’t want to confine it to after a certain task.

My answer came in an unexpected way. We live near a military airbase and jets fly directly over our house multiple times a day. There is no escaping or ignoring the sound of a jet soaring overhead. It is deafening inside, outside, basement, garage. And there was my answer. For the last several months, every time I hear a jet fly overhead, I pray.

I pray for whoever I know that pops in my head. I praise God for one of his attributes. I think through my day so far and confess any sins. I pray for missionaries. For my community. For our nation and leaders. For my family.

They aren’t long prayers. I don’t always close my eyes. But it’s amazing. Once I start praying, I just keep going. Unless a child needs me and starts screaming, I usually think of things to keep bringing before God. While I do dishes or fold laundry, I find myself praying.

And now, even on Sundays or cloudy days when the jets aren’t roaring above me, I suddenly will start praying. If no one is talking to me and I’m doing my household chores, I’ll just begin praying simple yet heartfelt prayers of need and thanks and praise.

Photo by Alexandra Mirghe from Unsplash