Wholeness Ministries
www.wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
When Pray Seems Useless!
This paragraph title caught my attention when reading part of Henri Nouwen's book, The Road to Daybreak. What people are always asking is, "What do I do when prayer seems useless?" Or they may say, "I don't feel anything, nothing ever seems to change, I feel as if I am talking to the wall."When talking with people about spending quiet time in God's presence they often respond, "I don't know how to do that!" Or, those who try it for the first time say, "That's really hard to do, I can't get my mind focused, I get distracted with everything imaginable. Nothing seems to happen, nothing changes, etc.
Henri Nouwen in The Road to Daybreak asks, "Why should I spend an hour in prayer when I do nothing during that time but think about people I am angry with, people who are angry with me, books I should read and thousands of other silly things that happen to grab my mind for a moment? The answer is: because God is greater than my mind and my heart, and what is really happening in the house of prayer is not measurable in terms of human success and failure."
I understand we live in busy worlds with lifestyles that wear us out. Sometimes we are frantic and we don't even know why we are frantic. I believe part of why we don't go to this quiet place with God is that we make it to difficult or view it as another task to be accomplished. Tragic isn't it, that we would see this time with God as a task instead of a love relationship.
Do you remember when you fell deeply in love for the first time? Was it difficult to make time to be with the one you loved or did you find time? I suspect, like most people you found time and it was easy and enjoyable to be with them. That's because you were in love.
Nouwen further wrote, "If I believe that the first commandment is to love God with my whole heart, mind, and soul, then I should at least be able to spend one hour a day with nobody else but God. The question as to whether it is helpful, useful, practical, or fruitful is completely irrelevant, since the only reason to love is love itself. Everything else is secondary."
Whether it is helpful, useful, practical or fruitful is completely irrelevant! That's nuts! We feel as if everything we do has to produce something or we have wasted this precious commodity of time and we don't have the luxury of wasting time!
When you begin to fall in love with God it is not difficult to be with Him. Conversely, when you are spending time with Him you will fall deeply in love with Him. If you love someone you want to be with him or her. If I love someone I certainly look forward to spending time with him or her and it does not take any special skill to be with them.
In his book The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence wrote, "Neither skill nor knowledge is needed to go to God...all that is necessary is a heart dedicated entirely and solely to Him out of love for Him above all others."
When you sit still to pray or listen you may be thinking, "I am just sitting here getting distracted." What is remarkable about this time spent is that while you may think that sitting in God's presence day after day is a useless waste of time you will eventually discover that it radically changes your life. You may think that every hour, day or month is useless but as you look back over the time spent you will gradually realize that something significant is happening of which you were not even aware.
Let's do not make it so hard. You do not need any special training, books, experience or gifts. Decide you want to sit quietly with Him, ask Him to help you make time and simply begin to do it. You will find yourself drawn to His heart and a love will grow in you for this time with God, and nothing will keep you from it, even when it seems useless!
Wholeness ministries offers a weekly School of Healing Prayer, individual prayer by appointment, numerous resources on both audio and videotape as well as our book "Learning To do What Jesus Did."
For more information please contact:
Rev. Mike Evans
4301 Stine Rd. Suite H
Bakersfield CA
USA 93313
661-833-2920
Fax 661-833-2934
mevans@wholeness.org
www.wholeness.org
