I Wish I Would Pray Like I Eat
Categories: Church of Christ Bulletin Articles
I can’t think of a day in my life that I went without food and didn’t notice it. And except for a few times of sickness, you would be hard pressed to find me on a day that I haven’t eaten numerous times. If I go for a couple of hours without eating, I know it, and generally get a bite of something. But I can go a whole day or more and not pray and it can escape my notice.
How sad that is. You might say, “Well, my stomach will growl and let me know when I’m hungry.” If I haven’t prayed, then my spirit should growl and tell me it is unsatisfied. It’s a horrible thing to realize that my stomach is something more of a god to me than the very God who created me and loves me.
Why does this happen? In my own life, it’s the ever spreading virus of being too busy. With fifteen places to be today and fifty things on my to do list, before I know it, I’m falling into bed exhausted and realize I haven’t prayed today to my God. Oh, I said a short prayer before I ate, but with food in front of me and all the noise around me. I’d hate to make the case it was the most fervent and sincere prayer of the week.
So, the question always comes back, “How do I do better?” The answer is never the same for every person. It has to be what works best for you. Some pray as soon as they get up, others set their watch to go off during the day to remind them to pray, and others wait until before they go to bed.
For me, it helps to make notes to find in my truck or lunchbox, or on my desk, and as I find them, I try to stop and pray. It seems though, that the most effective things is to be thinking about my church family throughout the day. The more I think about those I love and their needs, the more likely I am to pray about and for them (James 5:13-16). Not a rehearsed prayer said without thinking, but a specific and meaningful prayer based on my true feelings toward my brothers and sisters in Christ.
And so I keep trying, some days succeeding, and some days failing, but always striving toward the day when I can say that I pray better than I eat!
—Phillip Patterson