Hajja Salesjana

I remember lying in bed when I was 7 years old praying for everything and everyone. With my chin propped up on my hands, I’d pray for my sisters, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, friends, people from church, people in my town, in my state, in my country and all around the world. I’d even pray for people in heaven and hell. Then I would fall asleep and do it again the next night. With that kind of childhood prayer life, one might think I grew up to be a passionate prayer warrior who sees God answer my requests in awesome ways. But the truth is that I’ve sometimes gone weeks without faithfully going to the Lord in personal prayer. My excuses range from busyness to tiredness to a downright lack of self-discipline. The worst part is, I know I’m not alone. Paul Miller, author of A Praying Life, writes how America is the worst place in the world for a believer in Christ to cultivate a quality prayer life: We are so busy that when we slow down to pray, we find it uncomfortable. We prize accomplishments, production. But prayer is nothing but talking to God. It feels useless, as if we are wasting time. Every bone in our bodies screams, “Get to Work.” (A Praying Life, page 15) So how do we turn to the Lord in prayer when so many other things are pulling at our attention? How do we pray without the anxiety that we are wasting our time? 1. Understand Why We Pray Prayer is a mysterious gift from God that connects us to our Creator in an intimate way. Jesus constantly sought out quiet places to pray to the Father, most notably on the eve of His crucifixion in Gethsemane. (Mark 14:32-46; John 22:39-49) We worship a sovereign God, meaning that He is in control of all things. And He invites us to pray for Him to intercede in our lives and the lives of others in the world. We don’t know how He does it—it’s a mystery—but we do know that He responds. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8) We pray because we need God to make a difference in our lives. 2. Learn How to Pray This may sound like a trite point, but Jesus gives us the perfect example of how to pray in the gospels. Not only does he offer the Lord’s How to Pray in a Distracting World by Corum Hughes Photo by Ben White on Unsplash.com 24 April-Ġunju 2023 hajja