O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord. Psalm 139:1-4 (NLT)
"Dear Lord, Thank you for a new day. Speaking of a new day, how am I going to get it all done? And what am I going to wear to that meeting....especially since I have a pile of laundry that didn't get done this weekend because ....oh, this weekend. Maybe I shouldn't have said what I said to her. But did you hear what she said to me?"
Do your prayers ever feel like they wind around the bend with no particular focus? Mine do, especially if I am not journaling them. I start out with good intentions but get side-tracked easily. This used to bother me. I would get frustrated when I realized that my mind had wandered off some place and I was not really focused.
Then, I thought Why not pray about all this stuff that has me so distracted? Why not talk to God about it?
Does God care about my pile of laundry? Well, maybe not specifically but he does care about what I was doing that caused it to still be sitting there. And he does care about the fact that it's really distracting me which is taking my focus off what he wants me to do.
As I started praying through my attention deficit, I realized that a lot of what distracts me are actually things I can pray about. When I pray about the interaction over the weekend, God brings to mind that maybe I wasn't seeing things the way he does. When I pray about what I am going to wear to a meeting, it becomes prayers about my day and who I will meet with, not the actually meeting itself. And from there, the people in my life flood into my mind and I lift them up. Sometimes. Every time I pray it's different because every day is different.
I used to try to pray so it made sense but I don't do that anymore. Now, I pray real. I let my brain and my heart (which God created) lead the way and I know that God is listening and he doesn't get distracted at all. After all, he knows what I am going to say even before I say it. He's just waiting for me to get to the points he needs to bring home to my heart. Good thing he's so patient.