Managing a Meandering Mind
October 1, 2001
Like the prodigal son, my mind wanders recklessly into a far country when I pray. In moments of solitude when I am just getting close to God, my brain shifts into gear and speeds off for the highway. I tried making a list. I tried walking around with my eyes open. I tried praying out loud; I tried praying real loud. The harder I tried to eliminate the distractions the more frustrating they became. Then an idea came to me unexpectedly. What if the interruptions are God's effort to dialogue with me in prayer? Perhaps God has a better handle on prayer requests than I do. What if I allowed him to use the distractions to direct my prayers? I decided to surrender my prayer agenda and to stop fighting the interruptions. Instead of battling my wandering mind, I lift up each random thought in prayer when it comes: "Lord I'm thinking about doughnuts. You got any idea why?" Sometimes praying on it clears the thought away, but other times God uses the thought to speak to me (like convicting me that there's a hole in our relationship). Besides opening a new world of interactive dialogue with God, my learning to pray the interruptions instead of fighting them, I discovered, has other benefits. Don't go there
At times my prayers are interrupted by what appear to be inappropriate subjects—lustful images, anger about the ministry, complaints. My response used to be denial. I didn't want to admit those thoughts could enter the sacred place of prayer. Frustrated, I would push them away. If they came back, I pushed harder. But the pushing became a distraction in itself. One morning in prayer I was distracted by my irritation with a particular Christian. I was tugged toward bitterness by my ineffective attempts to disciple stubborn believers. "Just ...
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