Make Time for God
Good morning! It’s been a bit since I shared anything on this page. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my prayer life; namely, how important it is to not be complacent with it. Prayer is such an easy thing to neglect, such an easy thing to develop a passively cavalier attitude toward, and it is incredibly important that we remember what prayer actually is: when we pray, we are not approaching some genie, after all. We are not approaching the mayor of a city or the president of a country- these are small time, comparatively. When we pray, we are approaching the Living God, the King of the universe; so, why is it that we seem to struggle to make time for Him, even though He, in His kindness, is always available to us? Not “available” simply for our pleasure or convenience, but available so that we might commune with Him, adore Him, and be satisfied by His goodness and presence. It is strange and bothersome to me how often I catch myself beginning to pray and almost immediately feel my mind start to wander, or my eyes get heavy. It irritates me how naturally irreverent I can be. It feels like being with Peter and the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane: “37 And He came and found them sleeping, and *said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38 “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”” (Mark 14:37-38) My spirit feels willing, but my flesh, at almost no provocation, is incredibly weak. Sometimes, it feels utterly joyful to pray for an hour or longer, and at other times it feels like a real exercise to even pray for five minutes. I assume you also have a similar experience and struggle. If you do, how do you combat this difficulty? For me, I make it a point, when I am out working, to set a time every day- usually starting between 12 and 12:30- as a dedicated time for prayer. I will turn off my podcasts and videos and books, and I will pray, sing and/or listen to scripture. In Psalms, it is not uncommon to find the psalmist stir himself up to praise the Lord (Psalms 103 and 96 are two of my favorite examples), and I like to take a page from that literal book when I can. I am painfully aware that I do not always want to do this, but I still make myself do it for the sake of discipline and faithfulness; my prayer life shouldn’t be neglected just because I don’t “feel” like it. Feelings are notoriously fickle, after all. I am 25 years old at the time of writing this, and I have spent an uncomfortable amount of time in the last 25 years neglecting fervent, frequent prayer and choosing to do almost anything but stir my soul up to worship. How about you? One of my favorite prayers these days tends to go something like this:
“Heavenly Father, thank you for this day that You have blessed us with. Thank You for allowing my family and I to wake up this morning with sight in our eyes, breath in our lungs, and a roof over our heads. Thank You for the food in our bellies and the clothes on our backs; the work that You have provided for our hands and the bodies that are able to carry it out. Thank You for being so kind and compassionate to us in spite of how undeserving we are; for choosing us and calling us to be Your people. Thank You for the precious, cleansing blood of Your Son, Yeshua, who has mad it possible for us to be called Your children. Please, soften our hearts towards You, towards Your word, and towards one another so that we would honor and glorify You as we go about our day. Strengthen us against temptation, O God, because we are weak and we cannot endure or abide without Your strength. Be patient with us, Lord, because we are just dust. Be kind and merciful to us, and give us the grace to be kind and merciful to those around us. Train us in the way of excellence, loving those around us as is pleasing in Your sight and will reflect You properly. I thank You, O God, because I know that You hear me; I pray that these words are pleasant and acceptable to You. I bless You, Lord, and I thank You for hearing me.”
That isn’t where my prayers necessarily have to stop, but if I say nothing else I make a point to say at least that much, whether I feel like it or not. Preferably, that is my springboard for everything else: a prayer of gratitude, meant to lift up the Lord and call my own soul away from the apathy that so easily settles in, followed by things like intercession, pleas for the well-being of my brothers and sisters in Christ, the conversion of my friends, the salvation of my household, and the health of my family. Sometimes all of these things, sometimes a few, sometimes only one; the point is that I try to make the time available and I try not to take it too lightly. That time is God’s time- all time is God’s time, but you know what I mean- and even if it is sometimes brief it helps me a lot to have that section of the day allocated for that purpose. Do you have a time like that, or specific prayers that you find yourself repeating often? Not out of rote, but out of sincerity, really longing to spend that time with the Lord. If you don’t I want to encourage you to make that time. You probably spend at least 30 minutes on YouTube, FaceBook, Instagram, or some other app on your phone every day. You probably spend at least 30 minutes listening to music, reading, or watching at least one episode of a show each day. Whatever your day looks like, surely you can find the time somewhere- outside of just at mealtimes- to give thanks to the God that made you, to talk to Him. Don’t try to treat Him like a genie or like a magical stress reliever- that’s foolish- but approach Him as He is and learn to delight in Him as He is.
