THE FOCUS OF PRAYER

I am not the only one who has had this experience. I was praying through a prayer list today and something distracted me. I continued to go down the list without my full attention. I regularly pray through a number of prayer lists. I have a list of movie people. I have a list of authors I ask God to work through. I pray for lost people God has brought into my life. I pray daily for a list of missionaries around the world. And it can be difficult to pray through these lists without distraction. I had gone some ways down the list today before I realized I was not focusing on my prayer.

Of course sometimes when I am distracted I need to pray about what is distracting me, changing the subject of the conversation, if you will. And I need to focus my mind on that until I pick back up where I was on the list. I also pray daily through several extended passages of scripture that I have memorized. I regularly find myself going through these without my mind fully focused on a passage. Prayer demands focus. You must focus on God and on the concerns you are lifting up to Him. I find I need to regularly stop and bring my prayers back into focus. I also regularly ask God to help me focus on what I am praying about.