Stumbling through Prayer

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. I was trying to focus on prayer during church, but all I could hear was the thud of heavy walking. I was sitting in the balcony, and the floor shook. I'll admit it. I opened my eyes and looked up to see the culprit. I thought only a 250-pound man could make such a ruckus. Ha! It was a young girl with bulky-soled books. And she was wandering across the balcony with her head held high and no regard to anyone around her. How rude!

As is often the case, God asked me a subtle question in the moment of my judgment. "Can you not focus on me while there are distractions?"

I started thinking about my daily life, and how I sometimes have my arms so full, I can barely see where I'm walking. Have you ever tripped while carrying groceries into the house or a stack of books up school stairs? What about when carrying boxes when moving or reorganizing? When the focus is on what's in your hands instead of where you're going, you can get yourself in trouble. Like when I reached for the door handle while carrying pizzas and firmly grabbed the bee sitting on the handle!

God meets us where we are, whether we're carrying an armload of baggage and personal responsibilities or not. But our focus will be impaired. We have to focus on adjusting the weight we're carrying or peering around our loads to make our next steps. We won't be fully attentive until we set down our burdens and clear our paths to seeing and hearing God.

Distractions aren't always out of our control, like the girl clomping across the balcony. Distractions are often in our own hands. What distractions will you set aside?

Because he is our God and we are the people he takes care of, the sheep that he tends. Today listen to what he says. - Psalm 95:7 (NCV)

I WIN!

I enjoy watching people. While at Panera recently, I saw many individuals and groups of people come and go. But one small boy stands out. In fact, I would have had to try very hard not to notice him.

He was three or four years old and arrived with his grandma, who met a friend. The boy sat on the inside of the booth while his grandma and friend chatted. The two women rarely took a break, even as the boy did his best to disrupt them. He asks questions, told stories and peered into the next booth. He walked and bounced on the seat and chatted with the with people waiting for their food. His grandma seemed to have an eye on the side of her head; although she rarely stopped looking at and talking with her friend, she constantly reached over to subdue the boy.

Finally, she gave him the warning: "We're leaving soon, so you need to get ready." Get ready? This boy had been blocked in this booth for way too long already. Oh, he was definitely ready. The problem was, grandma wasn't. The boy and his grandma didn't have the same interpretation of leaving soon. So he stepped it up a notch. He talked incessantly of what he was going to do when he got to grandma's house. And his voice got louder and louder. He leaned toward her and spoke directly into her ear and repeated "Graaandmaaaaa!"

When have you walked in place or bounced up and down in impatience? When have you repeated the same thing over and over, believing more words or louder speech would get someone's attention? How does this boy's behavior remind you of your prayer life?

After several minutes of the boy's constant and increasingly louder demands for his grandma's attention, the grandma peeled her eyes away from her friend, looked her grandson in the eye (frankly, I think he was startled to find her looking directly at him), and firmly said, "We're leaving now."

The boy raised his hands high above his head and yelled, "Yeah, I wwiiiiinnnnnn!"

I wonder how many times God has given me what I wanted simply based on my persistence. Was it his will anyway? Perhaps. His timing? Likely not or he would have chosen another time to answer and not rewarded my incessant demands and childish behavior.

When do you raise your hands high above your head and yell, "Yeah, I wwiiiinnnnn!"? When you get your way...or when God gets his?

All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. - 1 Corinthians 9: 25-26 (NLT)