Why is it when I try to pray my mind starts to wonder? I desire to be intimate with Christ but the moment I go to Him my mind...all of a sudden...has all these other thoughts that get in the way. I ask God to clear my mind, to keep my focus on Him, but the wondering continues.
Why can't I stay focused when I feel these things are important to me? Do I really count these things important? If I did, wouldn't I better be able to stay focused?
Why can't I seem to get past that thick wall that seems to separate me from Christ? It must be sin. What sin am I in denial about?
Search me, Oh God, and show me my sin! Why am I wrestling? I love Christ...I really do...at least I think I do, wouldn't I be delighted to go to Him and not "make myself" pray?
Flesh is a terrible thing. Sin. Me. Oh to have a clear mind. To have a mind steadfast for Christ. To be able to go to Him and have that sweet relationship that I long for. To cry over my sin, seek His forgiveness, to sing songs to Him in my heart . To cry out for those I love, those I don't know, our nation......
Why is it hard right now? Why does it come easy at other times?
Why? I don't know all the answers to my "why's" but I do pray that in spite of my failures that somehow Christ would be glorified. Honored.
All I can do is rest in Christ and pray...wrestle and persevere even when my ugly flesh gets in the way!
Create in me a new heart, Oh God. Wash me, clothe me in robes of righteousness, search me, know me, try me. My affections are worthless . Conquer the power of secret sin!...I humbly pray!
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4 comments:
I suffer the same thing - trust me! I want to have a "certain" relationship with the Lord - I have an image of how that looks - but most of the time, I don't do what I know would get me there. Then I feel miserable about myself - and the cycle is perpetuated further.
Great post! I too feel this way very often probably more often than you. Thanks for this uplifting post that reassures me that I am not alone.
It is times like this that we can rest in faith and allow the Lord to use His body to bear one another's burdens. Perhaps He is bringing you through this to teach me to pray for you - I am pressing in to learn quick! I love you much, but I love Christ in you even more. May His beauty shine through you as He makes you nothing. Remember, He is strongest when we are weak, so rejoice in temptations and trials, for it is through them that patience and hope is perfected. I cherish you as I see you in the fight.
This is my first time to see your blog. Veggie link ;)
Here's what John Donne had to say about this prayer time distraction:
"I throw myself down in my chamber and I call in and invite God and his angles thither; and when they are there, I neglect God and His angles for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door; I talk on, in the same posture of prayer; eyes lifted up, knees bowed down, as though I prayed to God; and if God should ask me when I thought last of God in that prayer, I cannot tell: sometimes I find that I forgot what I was about, but then I began to forget it, I cannot tell. A memory of yesterday's pleasures, a fear of tomorrow's dangers, a straw under my knee, a noise in mine ear, a light in my eye, an anything, a nothing, a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer."
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