Too Busy Not To Pray                                                      2/8/09

          It had been a hard day.  It started out in the morning with teaching in the synagogue; then, to everyone's astonishment, He healed a demonic.  After this He went to Peter's house to rest, only to find Peter's mother-in-law sick and in bed.  What else could He do but stretch out His hand and heal her?  By then the word was out and crowds came to beg Him for a miracle in their lives.

But all He wanted, all He needed, was to sit in the presence of God and get His bearings straight, to be encouraged and renewed to seek God's purpose and direction for His life, to be reminded of God's love.  So early in the morning while it was still dark and everyone else was asleep He went out by Himself to pray.

That's Christ's first teaching on prayer: we need to take some time off by ourselves to pray --- to get away from the thousands of demands on our time and sit in the presence of God to get our bearings straight and to remember how much God loves us.

It used to be that that was a given in our lives, taking time to pray, but then life entered in and between getting the kids to gymnastics, finishing off that major project at work,  thinking of all that is on our to do list, God got lost in the shuffle - or more accurately we got lost, and it's time for us to find our way back to God again.

So how do we do that?

Well first, we get out our handy dandy day planner or our palm pilot or our blackberry and we pencil God in as a daily appointment.  It may be, like Jesus that the best time for you to pray is in the morning.  Maybe you can find an extra ten or fifteen minutes before the kids get up to meet with God and get your day off to a good start.

But if you are not a morning person and not even God wants to see you at 6 am, you may need to pray as the last thing at night.  Or you may be like my friend Sonya and pray for five or ten minutes during lunch.

However you do it, you need to find a place to pray that is all yours.  For me, that place is on my couch.  I have a meditation book, a Bible, and a notebook that I use to write my prayers down so I can stay focused on the prayer and not my to do list.  My friend Helen's sacred space is at the piano, and for Sonya it is the path she walks during lunch.  Just as each of us are different so our space and time will be different.  There is no one right way to pray.

Some of us pray with words.  Some with music.  Some by gardening.  What is important is not how we pray but that our hearts are tuned to God.

Don't expect to be a champion pray-er all at once.  Don't set yourself up for failure by saying I'll go from not praying at all to praying everyday for a half hour each and every  morning.  That's not going to happen.  So set up goals you can meet.  Maybe what you will need to do is start with 5 minutes of prayer time and build on that.  The truth of the matter is that God would rather have quality time with you than quantity time, so make a commitment that you can live with and build upon that, then make a commitment to pray everyday for at least a week --- or even better a month because in the beginning taking time for regular prayer will feel uncomfortable.

It's like any other activity - you have to practice it.  You wouldn't enter a champion tennis match without practice.  You don't expect to get better at golf without practice.  What makes you think you can have a deep relationship with God without practice?

Which brings me to my favorite rule about prayer from Martin Luther:  Don't lie to God.  Don't tell God just what you think He wants to hear.  Tell God what is on your heart - just like you would to your best friend.  Tell God the truth --- even when you think the truth will hurt.

God is not so fragile that He can't take it.  He's not going to go away or turn His back because we are honest - because we say hard things.  God can take it.  In fact God can take our honesty far better than He can deal with our pretenses.  And our examples for that honesty come straight out of scripture.

Look at Job who went to God in bitterness and anger --- who cried out in pain, "I curse the day You ever made me."  And when God spoke back in rebuke, it wasn't Job He was angry at.  It was Job's friends, who had tried to talk him into saying things he did not believe, who had tried to keep Job quiet and explain away his doubts and questions.

But God knew that Job needed to talk to Him, needed to express his anger and his pain and his questions and doubts.  So Job did.  He cried out to God, and while he did not get the answers he wanted, he and God did come to an understanding and Job's faithfulness and honesty in prayer was rewarded.

But prayer can also be filled with joy and laughter and the common everyday events of our lives.  It doesn't always have to be a momentous occasion or a time for requests.  Prayer, every day prayer, should be just a visit with someone we love.

But what do you pray?  Is there a pattern to prayer?  Yes there is, but like everything else that pattern differs from person to person.

Generally you will start your prayer with a simple hello, when you tell God what's on your plate for the day or, if you pray at night, how the day has gone.  

Next comes your I'm sorrys:  I didn't mean to yell at the kids that way.  I should have been nicer to that check out girl.  I forgot to send a card to that shut in.

Then comes the requests:  God I need to find the way to pay all my bills.  I'm worried about the colon test that is coming up.  I don't know what to do about my job.

 And finally there are the thank you's.  Thank You for giving me the strength to make it through the day.  Thank You for answering my prayers.  Thank You that that tumor was benign.

Then remember to take some time in silence to listen to God speak to you, because prayer is meant to be a conversation, not a monologue.  He may talk with you through scripture or by thoughts that come in the midst of the silence.  He may speak through the gift of a peace beyond all understanding or a sudden influx of joy.  But one thing I know:  if you listen, God will respond.

So make your commitment here and now to pray each and every day and let us stand together to say what we believe about this God we love so much.