Beat Up

According to a recent article in The Liguorian, we tend to beat ourselves up over how we pray.  Since our tendency is to do that which we do well most often, prayer can get pushed into the back seat of our lives all too easily.

So the message here today is to pray anyhow.  No matter how many times you are distracted, or how many times you went through the words of a prayer only to realize that your mind wasn't in it, or how many times you had to start and stop.  Persevere in prayer.  Those half prayers or partial prayers still reach God in his heaven and they still assist those who need them.  For our infinite God knows our ways and he understands our weaknesses.  But He does ask us to try.

If you have a quiet place to go, that is at least a start.  But sometimes quiet when you haven't had much of it is just as disarming.  I can just imagine our brains unloading all kinds of junk and stimuli that we've been trying to ignore the very second that we stop and become still. 

If all you can do is maybe three prayers and then take a rest, that's fine.  It's kind of like starting to exercise.  If you haven't done any exercising in a while, the first time or two is really rough.  And the next day it might even be worse!!  So we have to condition our lives in prayer. 

Maybe we will never achieve the amazing concentration of a cloistered religious but our prayers will change our lives and help those who need the prayers. 

Some people keep a prayer note where they jot down those in need of prayer.  That way they have a clear idea of what they are trying to do.  Some people just breathe in the quiet and let God bring the names of people to their mind.  Maybe a combination of the two is a good way to pray. 

Start out your prayers with a passage from the Bible.  Something that makes your mind move from the physical realm to the spiritual.  Let the words of the passage flow through the mind like a stream washing away sediment and fallen leaves.  And then, begin.

How blessed are we who can pray to God without feeling the pangs of hunger or being bitterly cold or who must hide from those who would punish us for it.  And so let us pray.

I hope your Christmas preparations are going well, readers.  Bless all of you.