Too busy to pray?

Whenever I talk to people about prayer, and they confess they don’t pray, or don’t pray as often as they oughta, I have never yet heard one of them use the excuse “I’m too busy.” I have heard of people using that excuse—it’s why I bring it up today—but people have never used that excuse on me. More often they tell me, “It’s not a regular habit,” for they’ve not made it one. Or “I struggle to find things to pray about,” which is fair; they’ve made the common mistake of believing their prayers must be long, and consist of 15 minutes of prayer requests—and nevermind how short the Lord’s Prayer is.

I suspect that’s most of the reason people would claim they’re too busy to pray: They likewise think their prayers need to be padded into feature-length size. They think they don’t need a prayer minute; they need a prayer hour. Jesus used to pray to his Father for hours, Mt 14.23 so they figure we should at least be able to spare him an hour of our undivided attention.They need to get into their prayer closet, spend it sitting or kneeling or bowing on their prayer rug, with the candles and mood music and Jesus ikons, and bible opened up to an appropriate prayer passage.

But they don’t have time for that prayer hour. So they’ll get to it when they have a spare hour. And if you have work and kids—and probably read, or watch TV shows or sports, or play video games, which is where many of our “spare hours” usually go when we find some—good luck even finding a spare hour. Heck, once you find it, and get to praying, I betcha you’re gonna fall asleep in the middle of meditating.

Anyway let me back up and remind you prayer doesn’t have to take an hour. How long does it take to pray the Lord’s Prayer? Less than a minute? And can you pray the Lord’s prayer in the middle of doing something else?—obviously you can. So nobody’s too busy to pray.

That hour of undivided attention? That’s for advanced Christians. If you struggle to pray at all, you ain’t advanced! Stop running marathons when you can’t even make it round a track. Get in the habit of regular short prayers. Then—and only if the Holy Spirit tells you there’s an actual need for you to do this—start scheduling yourself longer prayer times. Meanwhile stick to the basics, and master them first.

How many times have you seen people in the grocery store, talking on their phones while they’re shopping? I see it every time I’m in the store. Are they giving their undivided attention to the people they’re talking to? Nope. Do the people they’re talking to, know this? Usually! Do they care? Most really don’t. Does God care if our attention is divided—if we’re praying to him while we’re shopping? Nope! If he does care—if you really should drop everything else, and do nothing but talk to him—the Holy Spirit will tell you so. But typically it’s not an issue at all.

So again: Stop fretting about your designated hours of prayer, and talk to God! Pray basic prayers. Anyone can do basic prayers. You included. Thank God for your meals. Thank God for your latest cup of coffee. Thank him when you get a green light or a parking spot. Especially thank him when you dodge a traffic accident.

If people pop into your mind and you think, “I oughta pray for them,” do that right now. You don’t need to pad your prayer till you’ve implored God on their behalf for 15 minutes; take however long it takes to let him know what you want, and how you’re feeling about it, which again might be less than a minute. If something interrupts your prayer, come back to it later.

Nobody’s too busy to pray. You included.

Maybe too busy to formally pray.

The only reason Christians think God requires our undivided attention—that we’ve gotta eliminate all distractions, take our shoes off, get in that prayer closet, and spend an hour with our foreheads touching the ground—is we’ve got warped ideas about how formal our relationship with God oughta be. We think an informal relationship with God isn’t respectful enough; that God’s not gonna be pleased with us unless we treat him like medieval serfs before a prideful feudal duke.

We forget we’re God’s adopted children. And he’s not just our Father, he’s our daddy. If that sounds or feels weird to you, it’s because most of us Christians have been messed up by inappropriate and false teachings about the need to approach God formally. Not boldly, like the writer of Hebrews tells us we can do, He 4.16 by dint of being his kids. Not like children who have nothing to fear from their loving daddy. We gotta be those medieval serfs again.

In the scriptures, Jesus calls his Father ܐܰܒ݂ܳܐ/ἀββᾶ/avvá, “Abba,” Mk 14.36, Ro 8.15, Ga 4.6 a word your typical bible leaves untranslated. Abba actually doesn’t mean “father.” The word ܐܳܒ݂/av does. But once you put that final letter álap (ܐ) at the end of the word, and turn av into avva, it’s like adding Y to the end of “dad” and making it “daddy.” The word is the familiar title, not the formal one. Yep, Jesus is totally calling him Daddy. Ever wondered exactly why bibles leave “Abba” untranslated? Because “daddy” weirds translators out just the same as it does you. This false idea of keeping God formal is all over Christendom. And needs to go!

So it probably hasn’t occurred to you that the real reason you can never find time to get in the prayer closet and get all formal with God, might be because the Holy Spirit doesn’t want you to get all formal with him. That he’s deliberately keeping you away from a bad habit—until you can first lay down some good ones. Namely informal prayer habits.

Think about that for a bit. When you have time.