Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Kneeling in Prayer
After putting it aside for a while, I picked up the "Screwtape Letters" again today, and was struck by what I read: "At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls" (p.14). I've always feel kind of guilty that more often than not my mind wanders and I fall asleep in the middle of praying, but still I never seriously considered going back to praying on my knees instead of lying down on my bed to pray. ^^;;
It seems like such an obvious change to make, but I honestly didn't consider it until I read that passage! Anyway, just before I came to write this I got down on my knees to pray, and guess what? My mind didn't wander and I didn't fall asleep! Actually, my legs did start to fall asleep, though, so that was a bit distracting. =Þ I guess if I keep praying on my knees regularly I'll get used to being in that position so eventually it won't bug me anymore.
Speaking of praying, I think I need to work on modeling my prayers more on the Lord's Prayer. I noticed that most of my prayer time is spent praying for other people and for forgiveness for my sins. While it's true that I do actually do quite a bit of impromptu, spontaneous thank you prayers, I don't think you can ever thank God enough for all he's done, so I should probably have more thanksgiving--and praise too--in my regular prayers.
I think the problem I have with that is that I'm a bit reluctant to spend a really long time in prayer, so instead of just putting more praise and thanksgiving in, I'd end up cutting some supplication or whatever out to fit it in. For tonight maybe it was partially because my legs were tingling, but in general I tend to want to keep my prayers short. That's kind of silly now that I think of it. I mean, I can spend hours on the internet doing email, checking on the hockey pool, reading webcomics and whatnot, but I can't spend more than ten minutes in prayer? Guess that goes back to my problem of priorities.
Anyway, I'm starting to just ramble, so I'll end here.
After putting it aside for a while, I picked up the "Screwtape Letters" again today, and was struck by what I read: "At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls" (p.14). I've always feel kind of guilty that more often than not my mind wanders and I fall asleep in the middle of praying, but still I never seriously considered going back to praying on my knees instead of lying down on my bed to pray. ^^;;
It seems like such an obvious change to make, but I honestly didn't consider it until I read that passage! Anyway, just before I came to write this I got down on my knees to pray, and guess what? My mind didn't wander and I didn't fall asleep! Actually, my legs did start to fall asleep, though, so that was a bit distracting. =Þ I guess if I keep praying on my knees regularly I'll get used to being in that position so eventually it won't bug me anymore.
Speaking of praying, I think I need to work on modeling my prayers more on the Lord's Prayer. I noticed that most of my prayer time is spent praying for other people and for forgiveness for my sins. While it's true that I do actually do quite a bit of impromptu, spontaneous thank you prayers, I don't think you can ever thank God enough for all he's done, so I should probably have more thanksgiving--and praise too--in my regular prayers.
I think the problem I have with that is that I'm a bit reluctant to spend a really long time in prayer, so instead of just putting more praise and thanksgiving in, I'd end up cutting some supplication or whatever out to fit it in. For tonight maybe it was partially because my legs were tingling, but in general I tend to want to keep my prayers short. That's kind of silly now that I think of it. I mean, I can spend hours on the internet doing email, checking on the hockey pool, reading webcomics and whatnot, but I can't spend more than ten minutes in prayer? Guess that goes back to my problem of priorities.
Anyway, I'm starting to just ramble, so I'll end here.
