A Conversation with God

"When your mind starts wandering in prayer, be like a little child.  Don't worry about being organized or staying on task.  Remember you are in a conversation with a person.  Instead of beating yourself up, learn to play again. Pray about what your mind is wandering to.  Maybe it is something that is important to you.  Maybe the Spirit is nudging you to think about something else."  -Paul Miller

This is a common problem for me. I sit down and my mind wanders.  For some reason though, I have it in my head that I need to get back to my intended list of what I was going to pray for.  I came to prayer time with an agenda, and I need to get through it.

Prayer is not a staff meeting, it is a conversation.  Knowing this is so freeing, and it makes so much sense.  Laura and I have conversations all the time that begin on one subject and we end up somewhere completely different.  Do I pound a gavel on the table and say "Lets get back on the topic of such-and-such, because that is what is on the agenda at dinner tonight."  No!  We let conversation go where it goes.  Why?  Because that what a conversation does in a relationship, it develops.

This should be the same in our prayer life.  Prayer is a conversation, not a monologue that just needs to be said.  We need to be okay with the conversation developing, be okay with topic changes, and be okay when it doesn't go as planned.  The purpose isn't to get through a prayer list, it is to know God.  And besides, God already knows what is on your list, you don't need to recite it in formal ways each day.  He just wants to talk with you...like what you do at the dinner table with you family.

So start the conversation, and see where it takes you.