My Prayer Distractions

As is usually my custom, I rose early this morning, made some coffee, read a few chapters in my Bible, and then went for a walk so as to spend some alone time with the Lord in prayer.  My expectations of communing with the Lord were as big as my intentions but once I got out the door on this beautiful quiet morning my heart became more of a marketplace than a place of prayer. 
 

As I saw our truck sitting there in front of our house I realized I still hadn’t gotten around to changing the oil on it and of course thinking about the oil change caused me to remember that I needed to figure out where to buy an oil filter wrench so as to remove the oil filter because the one I brought to Cameroon was strangely missing.  This then led me down the trail of wondering how busy the market would be today since its Saturday and if I could somehow find a mechanic who might just lend me one.  Then, just about the time I got into the “Good Morning Lord” part of my praying it dawned on me that tomorrow is Sunday and I need to prepare for our service as well as our Bible classes later in the day.  These thoughts then led me down the trail of thinking about the emails I still needed to answer from last week as well as the update I still needed to write and blog article I wanted to write.  Thinking about the update caused me to think about all the work here that was still not finished and well…….Talk about distractions!
 

Well the good news is, I was able to clear my mind, give all these distractions to the Lord,  and do a little praying but oh what a battle it was to keep my mind clear so as to talk with the Lord rather than to myself.  Finally, I finished my circuit and as I walked back in the door to sit down and write this, I wondered about the value of my quote unquote “prayer walk”.  As I considered whether I should just go right back out there and do it again only this time with a much more serious approach to dealing with all my distractions, it dawned on me that distractions are life.  And since life is what we pray about—distractions may not really be distractions at all—they may be prayer requests in disguise.  In fact, perhaps they are the very things God wants to talk about.
 

I’ve never found that talking to my wife was any more intimate and pleasurable because I came to her with a list and an agenda.  Most of the time, what passes for good conversation between us is talking about all the distractions that interrupted our agenda and made scrap paper out of our lists.  Well, after giving it more thought I came to the conclusion that prayer without distractions may not be prayer at all.  Paul told us that we are to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) and that we are to be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving we are to let our requests be known to God (Phil. 4:6).  How can we pray without ceasing and over everything and not include our distractions?
 

So, I didn’t go back out on the road to repray my prayers.  I simply thanked the Lord for listening to me as I talked to Him and for listening in on me as I talked to myself.  Then I committed all my distractions to Him.