Day Eleven: The Halfway Point

How are you doing? I've gotten messages from some who are struggling and some who are thriving. Of course I have a range of friends who are doing everything from just eliminating caffeine to those who are doing a full water fast. The biggest struggle for me is carving out additional time to get alone with God and pray. I was talking to my neighbor Hilda about it and she told me that she has had fasts in the past where you do far fewer days and go away somewhere like a retreat or something. I think that would be amazing. But I wonder if I would think it was really amazing if I was there. I wonder that because I have a secret. I really don't like to pray. I don't do it near as often as I should.

I think it's easy to excuse my terrible mental discipline by just saying I've got too much going on to pray more. That if this were a 3-day retreat instead of a 21-day deal I would take it more seriously. I'm the kind of pray-er that struggles to keep my mind on track and not drifting off into lists or ideas or whatever else. So I've made a realization during this fast. For me, praying silently doesn't really count. I mean, I will continue to pray silently to the degree that I already did in my life. Throughout the day, in meetings, at my desk, cooking, showering, brushing my teeth, laying in bed, and little bits like that. But when I really want to set aside chunks of time and pray, I'm going to have to get out of earshot of everyone else and do it out loud. I'm going to have to take Jesus up on that thing about getting into the closet.

This probably sounds like a total no-brainer to most of you. Duh. Maybe I'm the only one who prays silently almost all the time. But it's become a cop out in my prayer life and I'm going to have to stop it. So starting in the morning (or maybe tonight before I go to sleep) I'm going to pray out loud for a while each day.

So I hope you're not disappointed in my lack of spirituality. I do try to make up for being a pitiful pray-er by being a kick-butt worshiper and Bible reading fiend and serving as often as I'm asked. But I don't think God is buying that anymore. I think He wants me to just talk. I know I don't let my husband off the hook that easy. :)

Today I will pray that all of us will take our prayer up a notch. I pray that all of us will come clean with the obstacles, even mental ones, that we have put int he way of approaching God. I pray that we will take advantage of the stunning awesome offer of getting to have a conversation with the Creator of the universe. I pray that we will set our lives apart for His service.