My outlook on prayer

I had a really amazing experience this morning.

I woke up this morning from a really compelling dream. I should perhaps add that I often struggle with to stay in reality, mentally; I often have to resist the urge to think obsessively about fantasy or book worlds. So I woke up from this dream, and it was literally all I wanted to think about. I actually lay in bed for a while, doing just that. I finally forced myself to get up, but I still couldn't think about anything else. Making breakfast didn't help, reading a book didn't help, even reading the Bible didn't help much. Then I started working my way through my prayer list. For the first time ever, I think, I wasn't trying to will the prayers true, and I wasn't bored and just trying to get through it. I was just talking to God, asking for His help--both with my own problems and for His protection of the species I was praying for. My experiences that morning had made it abundantly clear that I couldn't handle anything on my own. I was just talking to God, and basking in His presence. I was just with Him. The desire to think about fantasy worlds receded. Praying was a joyful, easy thing to do. It was, honestly, just completely amazing.

It made me think of the following C. S. Lewis quote: "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time--waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God--it changes me." For the first time, I felt like I understood what people mean when they say that praying changes them--because praying today did change me. It centered me in God, and God gave me His peace and strength.

Behind!!

I am so behind in my "schedule" for prayer for endangered species--about five days behind. I have had a hard time carving out time for prayer now that I'm back at school, of course made only worse by the knowledge that I have twice as much or three times as much to "do" as I would on a normal day.

There are so many problems with that thinking! Firstly, prayer isn't something to do, something to check off your to-do list each day. Prayer is joyful time, unscheduled time, time spent with God learning about Him and talking to Him and asking Him about what's most important to me. Secondly, when I do allow myself to get behind, prayer becomes that much more of a chore, because there's so much more to do, and I know that I should take even more time to completely finish. Did that make sense?

Boredom

Lately, as I've been praying for endangered species, I've really been struggling with a sense of... honestly, boredom. Let's face it, praying for 50+ species a day can be boring if approached the wrong way. I know perfectly well that it shouldn't be boring, but it is. Or maybe it's more that this task that I've set myself seems incredibly overwhelming (20,000+ species??!), and I've been wondering if what I'm doing is actually making a difference. As to the second half--well, there's no way for me to know for sure, at least not in this life. I'll just have to trust to God's promises, that He listens to our prayers and acts on them (Jesus said once, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossibly for you." Matthew 17:20, NIV). I have found myself wondering if I'm praying "correctly." By that I don't mean that I've been wondering if I've been using the "right" words or anything like that. I've been wondering whether I've been praying with the right attitude--with a desire for God's will and faith that what I ask for will be granted to me. 

Pride

A few days ago, as I was going through and praying for my list of species for the day, I saw someone sweeping and cleaning. I couldn't help thinking about how much better what I was doing was, how much more helpful it would be in the long run, and so on.

I know, how prideful, right? Luckily God informed me of that right away. Yes, prayer is important, but someone must also work in the world, talking to people, working in habitats, whatever it takes to create change in this world, the world that we're in now. And then I was reminded of this verse: "There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everything is the same God at work." (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, NIV).

Quote

I ran across this quote a few days ago, and again today:

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can.  ~Sydney Smith


It really resonated with me--I feel like it describes very well both what I'm trying to accomplish through my prayer quest and through my life.