George Raindrop in his book No Common Task tells how a nurse once taught a man to pray and in doing so changed his whole life, until a dull, disgruntled and dispirited creature became a man of joy. Much of the nurse’s work was done with her hands, and she used her hands as a scheme of prayer. Each finger stood for someone. Her thumb was nearest to her, and it reminded her to pray for those who were closest to her. The second finger was used for pointing and it stood for all her teachers in school and in the hospital. The third finger was the tallest and it stood for the V.I.P.s, the leaders in every sphere of life. The fourth finger was the weakest, as every pianist knows, and it stood for those who were in trouble and in pain. The little finger was the smallest and the least important and to the nurse it stood for herself.
Thoughts for prayer strugglers
Chuck Webster shares some ideas for those (of us) who struggle with prayer. Worth one’s while. Among other things, he says,
Pray a really short prayer, or a really long one—it doesn’t matter. Some of your prayers will last about fifteen seconds as you walk the sidewalk to your front door in the evening. Others might last as long it takes you to fall asleep, or as long as the drive is to work or the grocery store. And then you’ll have some that are like the ones Jesus prayed when he went off into the wilderness—a time of uninterrupted, focused communion with the Lord. But whatever you do, don’t worry about the length. Pray from your heart . . . God hears the ten-second prayer just like he hears the thirty-minute one.
Charles Brown’s 11 suggestions for a better prayer life
On the Smithville TN church site, Charles Brown gives 11 suggestions on prayer. Here’s the first:
01 – PRAY MORE. The average Christian spends a very limited amount of time in prayer. We often reserve prayer for emergency use only. How much time would you estimate you spent in prayer yesterday? How much time last week? More Daniels are needed today (Dan 6: 10).
Read them all at this link.
God must smile at our grown-up prayers
In an article about children’s and adults’ prayers, Phillip Jenkins wrote,
… sometimes I think of how much God must smile at our “grown up” prayers. We think we “know” what to say, “know” how to pray, and “know” how not to pray, but still, sometimes God must chuckle at those things we think we “know.”