Not too long ago a faith based movie called, “The war room” featured a godly older woman who would go into a closet to pray.
The idea of course was seclusion, so that she could focus her full heart and mind on The Lord and through prayer “go to war” to break down spiritual strongholds that were negatively impacting people and situations. It was easy for me to appreciate this path to praying since I too have found how easily distracted I can become when I pray. I have enough internal distractions to interrupt my prayers, let alone what can go on around me that can easily steal my focus.
The other day when I was doing a devotional I came across the quote below from 16
th
-century English poet John Donne that really highlighted the struggle so many of us face when we become distracted during prayer:
“I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and His angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and His angels for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door….I talk on, in the same posture of praying; eyes lifted up; knees bowed down; as though I prayed to God; and; if God, or His angels should ask me when I thought last of God in that prayer , I cannot tell. Sometimes I find that I had forgot what I was about, but when I began to forget it, I cannot tell. A memory of yesterday’s pleasures, a fear of
tomorrow’s
dangers. A straw under my knee, a noise in mine ear, a light in mine eye, an anything, a nothing, a fancy….troubles me in my prayer.”
Can you relate?
I know that our being distracted in prayer is not necessarily a sign of spiritual indifference, but sometimes it is indeed a sign of what truly interests us. A fly going by will undoubtedly draw our attention and really have nothing to say about our spiritual state, but to some extent our meditations about our day during our prayers will.
This is not going to be an email to make you (and I) feel guilty about how weak our prayers can be sometimes. No, instead it is a call. A call to each one of us to care very much about the condition of our heart and thought life and to strive to be reverent and mindful of God and His will and ways all through the day. As with most things, I believe that what “happens” during our prayer time has already been determined by what type of heart we have brought into that prayer time. If it is a heart that greatly desires to exalt God, to worship Him, to lay our lives and the lives of others down before Him, our prayers will just be an extension of the corridors of our heart. If however, prayer has become an obligation, or a “quick add-on” to our devotional life, then the fly going by, and the cares of this world will reign supreme. So the call is for each of us to give our hearts more fully to the worship of our Lord all through the day, so that when we are blessed to have time to pray, indeed we will do so. Are you struggling with your prayer life? Why not pray about it?
“But when you pray,
go into your inner room
, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” – Jesus
For Him,
Rob