Does Your Mind Wander When You Pray?

[HKHaugan]

Recently someone said to me, “It’s funny, no it’s not funny, when I begin to pray my mind wanders. I start out with my list and before I get into it I’m off on something else. I get disconnected.” Ever experience that? Probably the first thing you find is guilt nagging at you. You feel depressed and a failure because you are not like those prayer warriors who spend hours in elegant prayer before the Lord. Let me just say there is hope for you. I know of very few people whose prayer life is not dotted with disconnection, wandering thoughts and concerns that seem to pop up while praying. You might consider that your mind is not disconnecting but that every thought is connected to who and what you are and what you are praying for. Could it be that you are recording different events, unloading personal concerns, avoiding issues, looking for answers, allowing not only sincere desires but also finding the impurities of your heart to rising to the surface?

When you are open in your heart before the Lord there is no end to the stuff of life that needs to rise before the One who knows your rising and your falling, your waking and your sleeping (Ps.39:2). You have hurts, pains, inconsistencies, frustrations, joys and thanks all huddling together in your heart of hearts. There are all kinds of things going on that we are not even conscious of. They are the substance of prayer.

In the 60’s there was a kind of literature called ‘stream of consciousness.’ It was simply a random verbal river of disconnected thoughts and phrases. Idolized by some it was deemed by those with a more disciplined mind as nonsense. However, if we are willing to admit it, for many of us, prayer can be frustrating. But when it comes to God, every thought and emotion we have, no matter how disconnected they may seem, are in His mind and heart registered as your unique being. He is for you and He is with you. When you think of your life as a prayer, everything is covered. It is your consciousness of His presence that opens all your inner being to the work of the Holy Spirit both affirming and correcting you while you are on the way with your daily life. Your eloquence is not in how it measures up to the eloquence of others but in how open and honest you are as you think of God. Our lives are really streams of personal consciousness that become relational, interpersonal, when we allow our minds to let Jesus counsel us with His Spirit.

The Bible is loaded with prayers and in fact any part of Scripture can be a nudging to prayer with what comes to mind as your read it. Jesus directly teaches what prayer can be. You have the Lord’s Prayer (Mt.6) and His prayer in John 17 as examples of why, how and what to pray for. They are like compasses that give us direction. David’s Psalms and other numerous prayers from the Old Testament ring with insight. (Don’t forget Paul and his prayers given in his letters. Some of his teachings seem like prayer.) Rather than rigid legalistic forms they are expressions of open hearts to the Father. They are given to help us not condemn us. They are forms to assist us, to start us, then we as individuals bring in our own dimension.

Remember prayer is personal; it is heart driven, it is our direct spiritual connection with God. There is nothing that is insignificant to our loving Father, no matter how insignificant it may seem to us. I guess what I want to encourage in each of us is that a heart open to the Spirit can take what we give, connected or disconnected, and present the heart’s intent to the Father. He is doing that all the time anyway. But if there is a need for a bit of structure, three steps may help. First, relax and ask the Lord to send the Spirit to move your heart. Second, praise the Lord and consider how much He enjoys hearing you. Third, thank Him for being with you. Even in this process you may wander but there is no condemnation for those who are in Him.

Take this encouragement from Paul, “Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good (Romans 8:26-27, Message Bible).”