prayer

One of the things that I have always struggled with is prayer. I don’t really consider myself to be a good pray-er. It has always been something that I’ve wanted to do better.

I was thinking about how I could become better at praying, and as I was thinking, it occurred to me that maybe I’ve been viewing prayer all wrong. I’m all for setting aside time to pray…but sometimes I get caught into thinking that prayer is an end in itself. When I set aside time to pray just to be able to mark it off my list of things to do for the day, I’ve completely missed the point. I wonder if God gets tired of people talking to hear themselves talk.

I’ve got to stop trying to set the terms for when I am available to talk to the Creator of the Universe. When I really think about it, what I really need is just to be obedient. There are times when the Holy Spirit moves, and I know Jesus is calling me to pray. Times when I wake in the middle of the night and cannot stop thinking about my family…my daughter and wife. Times when I’m just driving around town, and most people would say I’m alone. Maybe I need to realize that I am never alone, the Lord of Heaven and Earth is closer than I could ever imagine. I need to realize that the point of prayer is not for me to just talk, or to finish a to-do list, but for me to be engaged by God in a conversation. There are times when God invites me to join him…to listen and to talk to Him. And rather than rolling over and going back to sleep, or turning on the radio to hear the scores of the games last night, maybe I need to spend some time with the One who created me.