Prayer Slacker

My pastor has been challenging us to grow in our practice of prayer and dependence on God ... to not let prayer be just another thing we do ... but that prayer would be the way we do everything.

Personally, I've tried to live an abiding type of prayer life; because being the check-list kind of person that I am, my approach to a scheduled "quite-time" has often resulted in it being just another thing on the to-do list. But while most would say the abiding kind of prayer life IS the one we should hope to develop, I'm realizing it has become somewhat of an excuse for me.

I know this because there have been times I've sensed in heaviness of heart the need to just sit in quiet before God - sometimes to pray in silent, sometimes to read His Word, sometimes to write - often times not knowing the person or circumstance I'm praying about.  I have sensed and avoided these encounters more often than not; so it's a cop-out for me to say that I pray with out ceasing throughout the day, when in my heart I know I've only offered Him my distracted attention.

I have discounted these calls. Why? Because to purposefully pull away from the noise of life, to sit without agenda or study guide or grocery-list of needs, leaves me emotionally raw, organically transparent, naked ... and it scares me. But I don't want to walk in fear. So yesterday, I acknowledged and confessed the condition of my heart to some friends, because I truly do want to answer the call to grow in my practice of prayer and dependence on God.

On a lighter note, later in the afternoon, I was reading Pete Wilson's blog. His friend recently wrote a book which he was giving away to 5 random winners.  All we had to do was post, on a scale of 1-10, how our prayer life is these days.  So I did.  (I'm currently a 2.) I woke up this morning to an email saying I was randomly selected to receive Dianne Moody's Confessions of a Prayer Slacker. 

God - you are too funny.