EP 195: Pray Until You Pray: When Your Heart Is Distracted in Prayer
Inside: When your mind wanders and your heart is slow to settle, don’t let that keep you from praying. Keep praying. Pray until you pray.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In Homemaking Matters, I shared something I’ve learned in my own prayer life:
“Sometimes you need to just sit with the Lord before the words come. There are days when I have to pray for a while before I’m truly praying—before my heart is quiet and tuned in to the Lord.”
Some mornings I sit down to pray and the words come easily. I have people on my mind I want to pray for and things I want to bring to the Lord. But other mornings, my Bible is open and my prayer list is in front of me, and my mind is already moving into the day ahead. I’m thinking about something I forgot to add to my to-do list that I need to get done, or a conversation from the day before, or someone I’m concerned about, or really just everything waiting for me that day.
I’m learning not to rush on those mornings. I can start praying even when I don’t feel very focused. So often in those moments, I’ll turn to the Psalms and begin praying through what I’m reading. I also love to pray through Paul’s prayers in Ephesians and Colossians. God’s Word really helps turn my thoughts back to the Lord, and it gives me words to pray when mine aren’t coming easily.
Sometimes I just need to pray for a while before I’m truly praying.
Listen to the Podcast (7 minutes) or read the post below:
Pour Out Your Heart Before Him
I love the words of Psalm 62:8:
“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”
I love that picture of pouring out our hearts before the Lord because that’s what I want my prayer time to be.
I use prayer lists, and I have a prayer app I’ve talked about, and I’m so thankful for them. I need them because I don’t want to forget the people I’ve promised to pray for or the needs I want to keep praying about. My list has my family and close friends on it, and some who are walking through hard things. But I also know how easy it is to work my way through a prayer list just like I would any other list. My list might say “pray for Sarah’s surgery,” and I’ll read it and keep going. I didn’t ask the Lord to do anything. I can get to the end and realize I was just reading through names and concerns, and my heart wasn’t really in it.
The list is there to help me pray. It’s not just one more thing to finish or get through.
So when I slow down, I remember how much I need the Lord. I can bring all the people I love before Him, and the things going on in their lives that I can’t fix. I need to confess my sin and ask for His help to change my heart. And then there are all the worries that keep me awake at night. I need to give Him those too. And always, always, always, there’s so much to thank Him for, right?
And the Lord already knows all of it. Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:8 that our Father knows what we need before we even ask Him. And yet He invites us to come to Him with all of it.
Maybe that’s part of why I need to slow down when I pray. My body may have stopped moving. I can be sitting or kneeling, but my mind can keep right on going. I can be sitting there with the Lord while I’m already thinking about what’s next: breakfast, the laundry, an email I need to answer.
But I keep on praying. Not because God needs me to pray for a certain amount of time before He’s going to listen to me, and not because the first prayers somehow didn’t count. God hears me because I belong to Christ, and Jesus has made the way for me to come to my Father. Sometimes my heart just needs a little time to settle. Maybe yours does too.
We Can Draw Near Because of Christ
I think this is important to remember when we talk about praying until we pray. We’re not waiting for a certain feeling before we know God has heard us. Our confidence is in Christ.
Hebrews tells us that Jesus is our great High Priest and that because of Him we can “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
So even when my thoughts are scattered or my heart is slow to settle, because of Jesus, I can come to my Father.
And when I don’t quite know what to pray, Romans 8:26 reminds me that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness,” even when “we do not know what to pray for as we ought.”
What a comfort that is! We don’t have to wait until we feel ready to pray or have the right words. We can come to the Lord in our weakness and trust Him to help us.
So when my mind wanders, I just begin again. I may turn back to the Psalm I’m reading and pray through another verse. I can look at a name on my prayer list and slow down enough to think about what I’m really asking the Lord to do in that person’s life.
Sometimes I tell Him about a worry I’ve been carrying, or I confess sin He’s brought to mind. Some mornings I simply say, “Lord, please help me focus.”
And often, before I even realize it, I’ve stopped trying to get through my prayer time. I’m just talking with my heavenly Father, who loves to hear from me.
If your heart is slow to settle when you sit down to pray, don’t let that keep you from praying. Spend some time in His Word and let it turn your thoughts back to Him. And remember that because of Christ, you can come to your Father with whatever is on your heart.
“Trust in him at all times,” the psalmist tells us. “Pour out your heart before him.”
And on those mornings when the words don’t come easily and your heart needs a little time to settle, keep praying.
Pray until you pray. I love that Jesus truly is enough.
If you’d like to read more:
This little encouragement comes from something I shared in Chapter 9 of Homemaking Matters. In that chapter, we spend more time talking about our daily time with the Lord and growing in our love for Him through His Word and prayer. You can learn more about Homemaking Matters and where to find a copy here.
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