Prayer Preoccupation

Have you ever been listening to someone pray and your mind wander? I can be in church, in a prayer group, listening to my wife or daughter pray, it makes no difference, and I struggle with keeping my focus on their prayers. Shoot, I sometimes have trouble keeping my concentration in my own prayers! Why is that?

I truly believe a major barrier to an effective prayer life is a preoccupation with self. It is selfishness.

I’m not proud to admit this, but when someone is praying in church I sometimes have a problem tuning in. I find my attention being naturally drawn to income taxes, or financial problems, or a family problem, or a Dallas Cowboy problem, or any problem that is important to my life in that moment. Sometimes, I find myself thinking about my sermon. Sometimes, something the guy mentions in his prayer causes me to stop and reflect on his point. Meanwhile, his prayer has left me behind.

In Argentina, a teammate and I use to meet with the college students of our church at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday mornings to pray. It so happened that because of scheduling difficulties, we had to choose that particular time and day of the week. Wednesday was my day off, but since the prayer session took place before my family awoke, I cheerfully went.

You might think my struggle there would have been to stay awake. It wasn’t. Instead I found myself making a massive effort to stay focused on what the person was praying. Time, however, would chip away at my concentration, and, at about the third or fourth person in the group, I would begin to struggle with the distracting thoughts. (“It’s my day off, what should my family and I do today?”)

Now, we can say that all of these struggles are human. And they are. And you can tell me that you struggle with this too. I appreciate your honesty. But the fact is, the reason this is a shared human experience is that our own selfish interests basically dominate us.

We want to talk about what we’re interested in. We want to focus on our concerns. Let’s face it. Sometimes it’s not fun to listen to what someone else is praying about. Sometimes, someone else’s problems don’t compare in our minds to our own.

We say we are God’s people, and we are. We say we are New Testament Christians. And we are. But, as God’s people, as New Testament Christians, we should pray along with other Christians in their prayers.

It is simply the right thing to do.

Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)

1. I read LARRY KING’s TRUTH BE TOLD. I got to tell you, it is a fun, fascinating, and quick read. Larry is the king (get it?) of anecdotes; nevertheless, there are some profound insights from his life and connection with his guests as well. Our local library has a copy—read it.

2. I think Brad and Colt McCoy’s new book is so impactful, I have decided to read it to my son—a little bit every night.

3. A friend of mine recommended we see SEVEN DAYS IN UTOPIA, so Judy and I saw it Labor Day. Good flick. Robert Duval basically plays a Christian “Yoda” to Lucas Black’s “Luke Skywalker.” It is a sweet movie with Christian and spiritual themes. My kids could have watched it. I recommend it.

4. It is hard to believe ten years have passed since September 11, 2001. I think few people have changed the world like those 19 hijackers did. Unfortunately, they have changed the world for the worse. When I think about the thousands of lives lost that day and in the wars to follow, all of the freedoms lost, all of the tens of billions of dollars that day has cost the world (the economic impact), I feel saddened.

5. Nothing worse than seeing the Cowboys almost win a game I expected them to lose, and, then,right at the very end--lose a game they should have won.