Wandering Mind, Focused Heart
By Robin Shreeves

I’ve always been a daydreamer. Sitting in my high school classes, I’d make up stories in my head until suddenly half the period was gone and I hadn’t heard a word the teacher said. I was a good kid and got good grades, so I don’t think my teachers ever realized I had checked out. Maybe they just didn’t care as long as I wasn’t causing trouble.

I sort of carried this over into my prayer life, too. As a teenager, I launched bedtime prayers like, “God, I’m tired and I’m just going to start thinking about something else anyway. So let’s just act as if I really prayed, okay? I know that you know what I was going to say anyway.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to pray, it’s just that my mind wandered. I’d be praying about a situation and the daydreaming would take over. I’d start to pray about a relationship with a person and before I realized it, I was scripting the conversation I wanted to have with that person. You know, the kind of conversation where you always know the exact right thing to say and the outcome is exactly what you want.

Frustrated with my inability to stay focused, I basically just gave up praying. I hoped that God was a bit like my teachers. As long as I was good and wasn’t causing any trouble, God would be okay with the fact that I had checked out on my prayers. Wouldn’t he?

I’d love to tell you how I solved the problem of my wandering mind. It would be great to write an article titled Ten Easy Steps to Staying Focused During Prayer. Only I never found that solution. I’ve only learned to look at it differently – to change the way I think about my wayward prayers. Maybe they’re not so bad.

God wants me to open up all of myself to him. Those daydreams that happen in the midst of a prayer are my true thoughts and feelings on what I’m praying about. Those daydreams are totally honest. There is no manufacturing of proper language. I’m not trying to pick and choose which parts of myself to bring before God. My daydreams come straight from the heart; and isn’t that what God is really trying to get at when we pray – our hearts? Does it really matter if my mind is wandering if my heart is focused?

In my daydreams God gets to see what I really want. It doesn’t mean that God is going to give it to me. But once he and I get to the heart of a matter, he can start to change my heart, if that’s what is needed. So I’ve come to accept the fact that my style of praying is just an extension of who I am – a daydreamer. He gave me an active mind, and I offer that back to him for his pleasure.

So, sometimes my prayers take a long time, and I must admit they don’t always finish up with a neat little “Amen” at the end.

But that’s okay. God can work with that. S&L