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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER (don’t write about the song) (04/30/15)
I want to have a sweet hour of prayer. Or a sweet fifteen minutes. Or five. But my mind refuses to settle down. I know about Jesus, and I know he is good, and I know he’s the best landing place for my thoughts. But I flit. I’m a flitter.

A hummingbird can afford to flit from flower to flower. A drib of nourishment here, a drop there. But the being who has always existed in total goodness and great glory, the one who created all that exists, he has known me and loved me and forgiven me and called me to be with him. That kind of life can’t be sustained by the occasional drib and drop. That kind of life needs uninterrupted connection and communication with the Lord of Glory.

For years I tried to master this problem using the Dejected Dance o’ Guilt: I should get up earlier to pray. I should stay up later to pray. I should hide in the closet so the kids won’t know I’m awake to pray. That just made me grumpy and tired.

Then one day as I was pulling out of the driveway, I saw the dashboard clock had lost three minutes—again. (For weeks it lost seven minutes over night, and every morning I’d dutifully reset it, but not before I’d dished out to the clock a snarky piece of my mind.) So three minutes off is better than seven. I reset it and opted out of the harangue against the unreliable dashboard clock.

And the light bulb flashed on. (Light courtesy of the Holy Spirit.)
Haranguing and snarking at myself for my lack of a disciplined prayer time does me no good. And that mood I embrace is ugly. It oozes ugly on everyone unfortunate enough to have to deal with me that day.

The truth is that every good thing comes from the Father, who never changes. In all my many weaknesses, the Lord is strong if I go to him for help. Like resetting the dashboard clock every day, I admit my weakness, my inability to plan and follow through. And I ask the Lord for help, and he hits the reset button. Little by little, I get closer to my goal of having an hour with him (without feeling guilty about ignoring someone else or hiding behind the winter clothes and broken tennis rackets.)

That forty or fifty-five minutes one-on-one with the Lord of All Glory and Goodness, the one who smiles at me and even likes to be with me—it’s sweet.
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Member Comments
Member
Date
C D Swanson 
05/09/15
I loved your segue into the powerful message at the end.

Well done.

God bless~
Lollie Hofer 
05/09/15
I so relate to your article. I too can be a flitter. It helps to have a notebook to write in to keep my focused. Thanks for the encouragement that all is not lost if I don't do this thing perfectly. Blessings.