Quarter-Heartedly

Doesn't  it seem that we get the best thoughts in the most inconvenient places?  My best songs and Carrie Underwood high notes are in the shower without a pen or Simon.  My best jokes are when no one is around and about 5 minutes late.  And some of my best (for lack of better word, you'll see later) "God moments" happen in the car.  I know people who turn down their radio and talk to God while they drive.  For me, he has to reach all the way through my earthly cloud of iTunes and blasting heat and speak over Maroon 5.  That's some serious business.  But really, some of the most heart-tugging words from the heart-pumper himself happen in the car.  This one is no exception.

Earlier when a friend send me a prayer request, I was heartbroken.  A woman had shot and killed her husband and it was nothing short of a moment where I should have dropped to my knees to ask God for comfort for this family.  But I went back to painting in my art journal.  Mistake #19384729.  Now that I sit in my car with the radio up, I wait for my brothers who are watching a movie at a friend's.  While they finish, I go back through my messages and see the one from my friend earlier.  Re-reading it, I immediately realize that I do need to stop and pray for this family.  I mean, it's terrible.
So I rummage through a few quick words and stop after the first sentence.  Or maybe I was stopped.  Either way, it hit me, I wasn't being prayerful.  Unfortunately, that's not a first.  I realize that I just wasn't prayerful enough.  Not like I should be.  Not like He deserves.  A lot of times, it's easy for me to just ramble off words to God and then be done with it.  I wasn't praying whole-heartedly.  Not even half-heartedly.  Maybe quarter-heartedly.  But it sucks fully.

My first thought after realizing I was throwing empty words in the air and calling them a prayer was "God knows what's going on.  He's going to take care of them anyways." A big problem for me sometimes is to feel like my words don't matter.  That I'm just one person and what if God doesn't even hear me?  Of course, the Bible goes on to prove its purpose.  There are so many verses that prove me wrong.  1 John 5:14 says "And this is the confidence we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us" (ESV).  Thats only one example.  We have to believe this and know that when we truly call on Jesus, he is eager to hear from us, and takes in our every word because he poured out every drop.

Then God dropped the truth bomb, of course.  What if more and more people had the same attitude as me? What if all Christ's followers began to think "well, I don't have to really pray about this.  God knows.  Plus, there are tons of others praying about it." Actually, no.  In this case that would be false.  It's a heavy burden to think that I could cause such distress, but really.  I don't want to be foolish enough to dance around it.

So, like he always does because of his unfailing love for me, God softened this hardened heart in the prayer department.  I leave you with challenge and encouragement.  I challenge you to really observe your prayer life.  Wipe up the carelessness and pack up the empty words you may have.  And if you don't, then you're not out of this one.  Since you're such a prayer warrior (for the Glory of God of course, don't get me wrong), please pray for us who struggle.  But you probably already knew that :).  While this can be a kick in the stomach, here's a kind word to the heart.  God hears you.  God loves us.  If that weren't true, he wouldn't answer the prayers we so desperately whisper in the darkness or joyfully sing loud in the brightest light.  No, God doesn't rely on your words to know what to do.  God has done many things without you.  He doesn't have to use you.  But he chooses to.  And the radiance of the light you dance in after He does, after his glory shines for all to see because of what he's done for you, it's warmer than the summer day that I so hunger for on this late December night.

"Rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.