Take time for prayer

I don't know about you but, sometimes I have a hard time praying. I desire to talk with God about everything but sometimes my mind drifts away. I'm already on to the next thing in my mind instead of taking the time to be quiet before the Lord.

I think Americans are so busy that we can't stand to just take time out to rest our minds. Our culture says "don't just sit there, get going!" Sure, we plan vacations to "get away from it all", but when we get there, we want to see the sights or do fun things and we come back more exhausted than before we left.

As a housewife I think about all of the modern conveniences that we have today to help us do our jobs. Women of even 100 years ago would drool at the thought of how easy their life would be if they had washing machines, dishwashers, and microwaves, not to mention fast food places on almost every corner! So then why are we so busy and stressed out? Those women had the same 24 hours in a day and they did things by hand yet they didn't end up in stress reduction therapy.

Americans are also self-sufficient. Like they used to say in movies, "I don't want no charity". We think we can do anything if we put our minds to it. I think that is also a hinderance to our prayer lives. We ask God for things but then we go out and take matters into our own hands because we figure either God didn't hear us or that He is taking too long to answer us. We want it NOW.

In order to have a good prayer life, I think we need to slow down. We need to be willing to take some time and just spend it with the Lord. We need to have a less busy heart. In my case, I need to allow myself to take some quiet time each day. My world isn't going to crumble. When my boys were little, it seemed like I didn't have a sane moment ever. If I had a chance to do it over again (not that I want to though :) ) I may have tried to involve them in my quiet time somehow. It may have been a chance to show them that time with God is important and to make time for it each day no matter what type of chaos was taking place.

So, as the weather is getting nicer, I challenge you to take a break sometime each day and spend it with God. It will do your heart good and your relationship with your Heavenly Father will become even more precious