Tag Archives: prayer

How I get things done. Sometimes.

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In a hallway on the other side of the building from my office are two sofas. They are more like love seats. They form the angle of a third of an apple pie, two slices, one for you, one for me. When you sit on these sofas, your back is to a couple windows, your face is toward the empty church sanctuary, hidden behind a brick wall. And most of the time, traffic in this hallway is light.

A couple times a week, when I remember, I walk to the sofas with a cup of coffee and a pile of lists. It’s a printout of my current projects, the list of drafts of various writing things, some articles that I want to read, the list of things that have to get done before I walk out of the building.

I never stay on the sofas very long, unless I fall into the sleep that looks, I tell myself, exactly like prayer. I never stay long because when I sit down and start to look at the list, I start writing. The log-jam clears. I make sketched-out progress on four or six of the things on the list, enough to go back to my office and my computer and write emails and essays and next steps.

There is nothing special about the sofas, I don’t think. Except that I intentionally move away from my connections. I intentionally move away from people. I intentionally move to God.

Because when I walk to those sofas, I am also saying “I need to be able to hear you God.” I would like to believe that it’s what Jesus did when he walked away from the crowds into the hills to pray. When I remember, that’s what I do, taking my lists and brainstorming with God.

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How can I start praying again?

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Dear Jon:

Something just hit me and I hope I don’t get struck down for saying this: I used to pray, something I used to do quietly on my own since I was a kid. But a year ago or so, I began questioning the purpose: If God has a plan for me and knows what I need, why barrage Him with all of these pesky DMs? But, if the purpose of prayer is more to lay our woes at His feet so they aren’t constantly zinging around our heads, then that makes more sense.

Dear friend:

I understand your thinking. I’m wrestling through some of the things that we tell people about prayer myself. What I’m pretty clear about though is that praying is more like this conversation we are having than it is like DM’d spam.

Think about our relationship, you and me. We’ve met face to face just a couple times. But we touch base through twitter pretty often. And we email several times a year. And we are both involved in a group of people who are interacting with each other at least quarterly.

Though we are able to do things for each other, particularly help each other think, the best part of our relationship is that we have a relationship. We are friends in ways that surpass the distance, that surpass the specific actions we can do for each other.

The content of the communication is often less important than the fact that we are interacting. Every touch, every exchange, deepens and enriches our understanding of each other.

I think that’s what God’s desiring as we pray. Doing stuff is part of it. Sometimes it’s handing off woes. But the bigger thing is developing a relationship between persons. With one of those persons being God.

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Related posts on prayer:

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How my mom lives hope.

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My mom has a disease that gradually sucks your mind away. It often helps you remember stories from the past, then disables the counter that keeps track of telling stories.

I’m intrigued by the stories mom finds important to tell me each time I visit and often when we talk on the phone. She talks about the night in December when we sat around a table and her granddaughter Hope talked with great clarity about the idea of church and young adults today. She talks about her prayer for peace as my dad was dying, and the sense of peace that she feels every day since then. And she talks about the time she went to college.

Mom had gone to college for two years, received a teaching certificate, and then taught for a couple years. She decided, somehow, that she needed to finish her four-year degree and so, in the mid-fifties, went to Bethel College in St Paul.

On leaving day, she packed everything in her car. She had a job lined up and thought she had a place to live. In the hesitation that came from leaving rural Wisconsin and heading to the big city, her mother said, “You don’t need to go.” “Yes, I do,” my mother said.

When she got to town, the place to live was gone. At 1pm, she went to work at Blomberg’s Pharmacy with a fragile lead and constant prayer. At 3:30, friends of her sister walked into the pharmacy, recognized her, invited her to supper at their house and offered her a place to live. She didn’t know they lived across the street.

This story she keeps telling me is a simple story of God providing when she didn’t know where to go. I think she tells me because she’s still there.

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A litany for the last Monday in July

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Leader: Our God, it’s Monday.

All: Hear our prayer, O Lord.

A: I’m empty, O God, as empty as the heart of the widow walking next to the coffin of her only son. Do remember her, Jesus? No options? No hope? You healed her son. Please raise my heart.

All: Hear his prayer, O Lord.

B: I’m full, O God, thrilled with the adventure of a new week, a new morning. Yesterday was wonderful, the community, the worship. Let me remember the awareness of your presence all week long.

All: Hear her prayer, O Lord. And bring them together.

C: We are certain, O God, of the direction you are taking our family. We know that it will be hard, that love that gives up stuff and family is confusing to many, confusing to us. But we know that you are here and we know that you will be there. And we are grateful.

All: Hear their prayer, O Lord.

D: I’m so confused, O Lord, and then I hear that family and I am even more confused. How can they be certain of hearing you? How can I be certain of you hearing me? How can they pick up and leave and say that it’s you? I’d take just a whisper. Just an echo. Just a word.

All: Hear his prayer, O Lord.

C: And answer, please.

E: I am grieving. I admit it, O God. I know that you are with me. I know that. But he isn’t, not anymore. Not til forever. And I am trusting, that I am. But I am alone.

All: Hear her prayer, O Lord.

Leader: We are here, God, as different as apples and transmissions. Our fullness and emptiness grate on each other. So grant us your peace. No other will do.

Where to go first

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My wife has hit some challenging stuff lately. And as a result, I have too.

When your little kid wanders off and you find him twenty minutes later, you get really mad at him. “Ben, I’ve told you a ton of times to never to wander off like that!” But what you really mean is, “Ben, I love you so much and am so glad that you are not lost!” The heat of emotions gets us every time. Recently, we have tended to get angry at those who have done things to harm themselves and us, needlessly.

So one thing we’ve been pondering – and seeking to apply – is that it’s great to first go to God with our anger and frustration. After then we can go to others.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

That is from an old hymn, written in 1855: What a Friend we have in Jesus.

Yes, we don’t talk like that anymore, but just as you would read Shakespeare, look beyond the language to see the depth of truth and meaning there.

This is such a simple truth, but it’s something that I have to keep remembering, re-learning and applying again – over and over. Maybe a way to expand our thinking on this is to think of new ways that we can do this today. Share your idea in the comments to help all of us move forward in this. Or share a story of how you did this, to encourage the rest of us. Thank you!

(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday)