The Reality of Prayer
This morning I awoke three hours before my normal wake up time. It seems my body is still adjusting to the seven hour time difference between the US and Israel. The good thing about getting out of bed early is that it leaves plenty of time for reading. One of the books I am currently working my way through is Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. The following passage struck me this morning as it is a fitting description not only of the struggles that often beset a writer, but also of the struggles most people have when they set out to be committed to a life of prayer.
….as the panic mounts and the jungle drums begin beating and I realize that the well has run dry and that my future is behind me and I’m going to have to get a job only I’m completely unemployable, is to stop. First I try to breathe, because I’m either sitting there panting like a lapdog or I’m unintentionally making slow asthmatic death rattles. So I just sit there for a minute, breathing slowly, quietly. I let my mind wander. After a moment I may notice that I’m trying to decide whether or not I am too old for orthodontia and whether right now would be a good time to make a few calls, and then I start to think about learning to use makeup and how maybe I could find some boyfriend who is not a total and complete fixer-upper and then my life would be totally great and I’d be happy all the time, and then I think about all the people I should have called back before I sat down to work, and how I should probably at least check in with my agent and tell him this great idea I have and see if he thinks it’s a good idea, and see if he thinks I need orthodontia–if that is what he is actually thinking whenever we have lunch together. Then I think about someone I’m really annoyed with, or some financial problem that is driving me crazy, and decide that I must resolve this before I get down to today’s work.
This description of the distractions that come all too often to writers is also a perfect description of the types of things that immediately crowd their way into our minds when we sit down to pray. It is often when we are most in need of one on one time with the Lord that all these other things start to creep in and fill the space that we want to leave empty for God. My best strategy when this happens is simply to let those thoughts come into my mind without fighting them and to let them drift out again. If this is all that I can accomplish during a given time set aside for prayer, it is not wasted time. It is simply a time spent in trying to quiet my body and mind for prayer. If I can’t get there today, perhaps tomorrow will be better. I do believe that as in writing, consistency and discipline to sit down everyday with the intention to pray is most important. If one does so, the dry times will be there, but eventually they will pass.
Today I give thanks to Anne Lamont for the reminder that the first step is simply to make time each day for prayer, and for writing!
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