Does anyone out there have prayer problems?

(Me, hand up sheepishly, in the back of the room, trying to be honest yet hoping no one sees me.)

Let’s see, here are a few common ones:

• You save your prayer time for night, so you find yourself battling sleep every time. The good Lord catches you more often saying your zzzz’s than your amens.
• Your prayer time feels more like a list to Santa Claus. It’s dominated by wishes and wants and hopes and dreams rather than resting in the presence of God.
• Or maybe you’re like me: when I get to the part of my prayer time where I make my requests known to God, as if He doesn’t know them already, I sometimes grow terribly anxious. I have a short list of items that I’ve been praying for over the last several months, and just seeing them can make me uneasy.

The praise and thanksgiving part of my prayer time comes as easily to me as breathing. It is there that I want to stay, and I find myself understanding more clearly what Paul meant in I Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” An attitude of praise and thanksgiving grows deep roots into the soul, transforming all aspects of our being. Glorifying God and being grateful for His many blessings become not so much a part of an isolated daily prayer time, but rather they shift our character, our focus, our hearts, and our minds.

But I feel like if I don’t make some effort to pray over situations and for people who need God’s help, then I’m not doing it right. 

It’s as if I am still a child, and I’ve got my list of my loved ones, all extended family included, my dogs, my cats, and my friends. I must pray for all the sick and afflicted in the entire world. I must pray for world peace.

If I don’t, the earth might stop spinning and life as we know it just might cease to exist.

Do you see me spiraling down, down, down? It’s no wonder I sometimes end my prayer time with more worry than I brought into it. Under my own power, this is what happens. 

I don’t want my prayer time to have the same kind of uncertainty as I have when I’m twisting up my hair to secure it with a claw clip: will it pouf correctly? Will my top strands look like a squirrel nest or will they fall to place? Will I have to redo it to get it right?

When the focus becomes more about getting it right than on communing with my Creator, it’s time to stop and regroup.

Not praying. Never stop praying. But sometimes adjustments must be made.

Maybe I need to take some instruction from the Master, whose template for prayer is just as relevant today as it was when He gave it to His disciples. It’s even more amazing when set to beautiful animations and Andrea Bocelli’s soaring voice.

Give it a watch. It will change your day.

The highlights: Our Father. Hallowed. Kingdom. Thy will. Daily. Forgive. Lead. Deliver.

I see nothing there about the necessity to pray for world peace. This is not the onstage interview portion of the Miss USA pageant. 

Boiling prayer back to the basics is freeing, and meditating on the Lord’s Prayer allows me to worship my King in the way that He intends: with awe, with wonder, and with majesty. I lose the need for control, and I return to my place, which is so far beneath my Creator King that there is no comparison. I am completely dependent on Him to sustain me, as are my loved ones, my dogs, my cats, and my friends. 

He knows my concerns already, and there are some days I probably need to leave it at that. 

Because if praying about them is going to raise my blood pressure two ticks, then I need to fall back on, “Thy will be done.”

Amen.

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Chuck Swindoll offers some practical advice on battling persistent worry during prayer time. His thoughts are much more polished and pastorly, if that is even a word, than are mine.