Think to Pray
Date:
2019
Prayers. So very simple in concept, and yet one of the
most difficult things we do to draw closer to our Heavenly Father. It is the means by which we communicate and
receive. But it truly isn’t that
easy. Prayer requires thought, time,
effort. It takes talking and
listening. And it is very easy for
prayers to become rote and thoughtless.
Even faithless if you have gone for a long time without receiving any
kind of promptings.
One
day, I was pondering over a particular problem I was experiencing with
prayer. My mind would wonder almost
immediately. I had trouble staying
focused. I would begin with good
intentions, but before I knew it I was planning what I would make for dinner,
or worrying about something or another.
I tend to have a mind that flits from one subject to another, so many
thoughts floating around at one time in my head. As I have grown older, and those I think
about, worry about and pray about have increased, my thoughts have become more
scattered. I knew that it was affecting
my prayers. I was pondering this, and
the words to this hymn came to mind....”Did you think to Pray?” Always before, these words were a reminder to
reflect on if I had, in fact, prayed that morning, followed by satisfaction if
I had, and guilt if I had rushed out the door to make it to church on
time. But this time, the words meant
something different.
Did
I think ---in order---to pray? Thinking
as preparation? What if I took time to
ponder what I wanted to approach my Heavenly Father with? What If I wrote it down so that I could reign
my thoughts in and keep them focused?
What if I listed specific things I was grateful for and specific things
I needed help with and focused intently on those things in my prayer – would it
help me stay focused?
I
found that it helped me immensely so much!
Pondering and writing it down works the best, but even taking the time
to think about what you want to pray for beforehand helps.
The
brother of Jared, Moses, and others, would climb a mountain to pray. We often relate a temple to a mountain, and
likewise we could go to the temple. But,
I think about that long hike...possibly hours or days it took to get to the top
of that mountain. That whole time could
be spent pondering the prayer that would be prayed when they reached the
top. Did they think to pray? I think they did!
Lesson:
One way to improve our prayers is to take time to think about what we
want to talk with our Heavenly Father about before we actually begin.
Tags:
prayer
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