Are you a distracted pray-er? I am. I marvel and envy all at once those who can spend uninterrupted, completely focused time in prayer. Should I be able to? Maybe. Can/Do I? No. I’m not sure if it’s a can’t or I plain ole don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty good at the desperation prayers, the dagger prayers. You too?
So I’m sitting at my desk the other morning doing what I do. I pull out my prayer list, it’s pretty substantial, there’s a lot to pray about. I also have these prayer pages that help guide me with specific prayers – salvation, Church prayers, school prayers. Then I have this little book Jesus Calling, that I use the prayers in each day. Sometimes I want to skip right past the prayer to the study – wrong! Anyway, I’m sitting at my desk with my mind a whirl about the day. I can’t concentrate. I feel bad. As a child of God, shouldn’t I easily be able to lift up prayers to my Jesus?
Anyway again, I turn off my desk light, maybe that will help, it’s dark outside. I can see the faded barn light and the moon. It’s really beautiful today, a sliver on the bottom and a shadow on the top. So I start praying. I remember something about work and want to shoot an email real quick so I can really focus on my prayers… Squirrel. Thirty seconds later, I close my phone, and get back to my prayers. I know what you’re thinking…what’s wrong with her? Back at it. When I look up the moon is gone. Just gone. Now, there’s not a cloud in the sky that I can see, it has just disappeared. Where’d it go? For just a second I’m thinking what in the world, did it fall from the sky? One moment of distracted praying (probably 30 seconds), I take my eyes off the moon for one moment, and it’s gone.
I take a breath and it reappears. Back at it again. As I was thinking about my complete lack of discipline – I hope I’m not alone – I wondered what God thought about my complete lack of discipline. Does He get the way my mind works? Does He want more from me? Is he disappointed in my lack of discipline? Does He want me to put aside the world and spend some focused time with Him? Does He understand? Does He want me to spend time with Him even though I don’t quite seem to get it right? It’s a resounding, YES!!! But, that doesn’t give me a get out of prayer free card. Look.
…and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven…
2 Chronicles 7:14
He wants us to pray. It clearly says if we pray, He will hear. He wants to spend time with us. He knows the world’s pull on us. He knows we will be distracted. He knows it all. But, what he asks is that we humble ourselves. That we discipline ourselves to speak with Him. We don’t need prayer rules, or get hung up on prayer lists. If we listed all the prayer concerns we have, we would never get through them. And what happens when we don’t get through the list? We feel guilty. We feel less. Do you think Moses kept a tablet of prayer concerns? Do you think Paul went through and listed every single need he knew and ticked it off the papyus? What God really wants from us is constant communion. Constant dialog. The practice of speaking with Him about everything, all the time. No special list, no special words, just a humble and willing heart. He knows us so well. He doesn’t leave us alone in our prayers though. Look.
In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express. And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will.
Romans 8:26-27
Isn’t that a great comfort? Here’s the interesting thing about these verses. For years I think I got them all wrong. I used them as an out. That I was too weary, too stressed, too broken to pray and that the Holy Spirit would pray in my stead. When I’m too weary, too stressed, too broken, isn’t that the time I must pray? It’s hard though, isn’t it? Sometimes we can only offer up His name – Jesus! That’s prayer. Sometimes we can only offer up – Help! That’s prayer. Where does my help come from? Sometimes we can’t even form the words in our hearts – Groans! That’s prayer. Sometimes we can only raise our face to the sky and look up. That’s prayer.
In all these prayers, we are not alone. The Holy Spirit is not standing in for me, when I pray, He is stepping out with me. As I pray, the Holy Spirit knows the perfect will of God and He speaks to the Father on my behalf. Isn’t that a beautiful picture? We offer our prayers. They don’t have to be perfect prayers. The Holy Spirit is intervening on our behalf. Not praying in our place, but praying with us. Not doing it for us, but doing it with us. We pray to the Father, the Holy Spirit petitions the Father. How amazing is that?
Weak as we are. Distracted as we are. Unfocused as we are. We are to offer our hearts unto God. He sent the Holy Spirit to groan on our behalf, not in our stead, but to help make those distracted, sometimes wordless, sometimes mechanical, dutiful prayers perfectly acceptable to God. Holy Spirit you are welcome here…