Wanderings and Worries

I’ve really been enjoying this journey through Yancey’s book on prayer. Some of my “unconventional” beliefs on prayer have been validated and my understanding of communion with God has developed further.

There have been times in my life where I have been very legalistic about prayer and have been “guilted” into spending time because it’s what you are supposed to do. I defined prayer narrowly as a time beginning with “Dear God…” or “Father…” and ending with “In Jesus Name, Amen.” My more substantial times of prayer still begin and end in that same manner, but I’m also learning to appreciate more the “attitude of prayer” peppered throughout my day. I used to be very upset about times of intercessory prayer when I would voice a concern for someone and then “wander off” thinking about them, how they must be feeling, how I could interact with them, or just their situation in general. I often do the same “wandering” in prayers for myself as well. When I finally caught myself in this “goose chasing distraction” I would beat myself up and apologize to God for wasting His time and mine and secretly wonder if I was ADHD. Other times, I would feel guilty about not praying enough for a person and their situation but there were times they were heavy on my heart and I would worry for them and because I didn’t begin and end in the traditional manner, I believed I wasn’t truly praying for them.
A couple of years ago through conversations with people I respect and my own self-analysis, I became comfortable with those times of wandering and worry because I recognized that inherent in those times was an assumption that God was/should/will be at work. I assumed God (without making an “ass out of you and me”) and believe the Holy Spirit directed those “distractions.”

Here's how Yancey puts it...

Prayer, according to one ancient definition, is "keeping company with God." I like that notion. It encompassess the epiphanies that happen during my day: turning a corner on a ski trail and seeing a gray fox skitter away, watching the pink alpenglow on the mountains as the sun sets, meeting an old friend at the grocery store. By incorporating those experiences into my prayers, I prolong and savor them so that they do not fall too quickly into my memory bank, or out of it... [according to Alan Ecclestone] "In prayer... you pause on the thing that has happened, you turn it over and over like a person examining a gift, you set it in the context of past and future, you mentally draw out its possibilities, you give the moment time to reveal what is embedded in it."