One Thing I Ask

The summer after my freshman year of college I went on a missions trip with Campus Crusade for Christ. One particular evening we heard from a speaker who had come to talk to us about prayer. He began the talk by asking us all some questions. "Are you satisfied with your prayer life? Do you think that you pray exactly as you are called to pray?" It was one of those moments where we all laughed and looked around thinking, "Yeah, right. Not possible." Until we realized that one girl up front had her hand held high in the air. You could tell it surprised the speaker a bit, too. I don't remember his exact response to her, but I know that there was some level of disbelief in his words.

You see, I think most Christians would agree that prayer is a hard thing. The bible tells us to pray without ceasing, and the models we have for prayer in the bible are intense and passionate (and often very early in the morning. . . like when its actually still dark!).

And to be quite frank, I think prayer is hardest for people like me. When I was a music student at the University of Illinois I used to scan the practice rooms every 30 minutes to see if any of my friends were practicing. Sitting alone in the 5x8 practice room for more than an hour was an intense form of torture from my perspective. I like people, and I like talking, and I am very easily distracted. I was recently talking with a friend about my struggles with prayer and shared the experience I had in the shower the other day (ok, that sounds weird. Yes, I pray in the shower - but as you will soon see, it isn't usually very successful).

My prayer went something like this: Dear God, thank You so much for the way You work in our lives. I can sense Your hand leading us - give us open eyes and hearts to sense Your calling! I pray that we. . . oohh, this shampoo smells so good. And I can't believe how much cheaper it is than the organic stuff I was buying. I wonder if it has all those bad ingredients in it like the eyeball numbing agent. . . hmmm. I can't read any of this.

I'm not even joking, friends. That's about how it went. . . But I'm not going to get into the theology of prayer today. I am simply going to say this:

I don't ever want to be satisfied with my prayer life. I don't ever want to raise my hand and exclaim, "I've got it mastered!" Because no matter what you believe about the benefits and results of prayer (and I believe that prayer accomplishes more than we could ever know for more people than we could ever imagine), we know that it draws us nearer to the heart of God and aligns our own heart with His.

Oh, if God would just change one thing within me today - I ask that it would be my hunger for prayer and my ability to focus in prayer.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18

I think over the coming days and weeks we should dig a little deeper into prayer. And as we do, I believe that we will find all of the motivation, discipline, and focus we need to allow it to reshape and redefine our lives.

Let's pray. . .