Here’s one for you. I’m not always giving my best performance when I’m praying. It’s actually quite common. Many of us have no problem with attending church, going to a Bible Study or even pitching in on any kind of church-related chore that comes our way. But when it’s time to pray, we hit the wall.
 
I am no different.
 
Sure, I try to make prayer a regular part of each and every morning but there are times I get distracted and completely forget. So I’ll do a ‘catch up’ prayer thinking it’ll get me back on track. There was a time I thought praying had something to do with a custom-written list of requests and favours. Was I ever wrong. Here’s why we don’t always pray…even though we should.
 
1 – Not Sure How To Pray
 
Yes, it’s true. It happened to me. I could hear others praying their hearts out at church but could not find the right words. I didn’t know the format. Was there a salutation required to open it with? How do I ask for stuff? Should I ask for stuff? Is there such a thing as world peace? These are all valid questions and each presents an interesting roadblock. When I figured out I really just had to have a ‘conversation’ in my prayers, I got over the worries.
 
2 – You Never Used To Pray
 
The only prayers I remember hearing at home growing up was what most of us would commonly call the blessing or grace that was said before a meal. It was in old Gaelic so I am kind of happy to know something connected to my family history but since we never prayed beyond that church prayers became a foreign entity to me. I did eventually catch on through observation and now have what I would consider a reasonably good foundation I use to get me going.
 
3 – In Case We Don’t Get Them Answered
 
Okay, I had to ask a Pastor about this once. What if I don’t win the lottery although I’ve prayed for it to happen? And if it doesn’t happen, do I need to pray louder? When I figured out that God already knows what I’m going to ask for before I do, I dropped the lottery part. Actually, since He enjoys hearing us say what He already knows is on our hearts, praying comes easy for me. If it is a chore for you, you’re doing it wrong.
 
Yes, I thank Him daily for what He does in my life and the lives of those around me. I also ask for things but not winning lottery numbers or a new car. I ask Him to keep doing the things He’s been doing in me so I can continue to see more good things in my life. Of course, there’s more, but that’s pretty much the main part. It’s really not all that hard to do…once you get the hang of it.

​I was raised in a home where both my parents were hard working and did whatever they could to provide for their two children. We did not attend church with any regularity but would now be known by the term ‘Creasters’ which is typically used to identify those who would appear at a church only at Christmas or Easter. When we went to church is was the local United Church.
 
My mother had a Catholic background as best as I could figure out and dad had some Christian beliefs but neither of them pushed anything on us nor spoke much about God or religion in the house. Looking back on the basic things dad shared with me growing up about having a good character, working hard, not cheating and the simple difference between good and evil I would now look at those as being a form of Christian teaching.
 
I have not forgotten many of those guidelines he pounded into my head and when I do sit down and read The Bible or a Bible reading program, I find myself coming across things dad had said that were either partially from verses in The Bible or were clearly messages pulled from it. He retold some of the most well-known Bible stories and I probably thought at the time that the stories were his as we often look to our fathers as heroes in our family.
 
What I remember most as a kid was the family that lived down the street from us for a few years. I can’t remember any of their names but the children were a few years younger than us and that was probably why we never really built a strong friendship with them. Also, it may have had to do with the fact that they were churchgoers and we were not. I only point that out because I recall one specific morning when I was in their backyard playing.
 
For some reason I remember we were making mud with cement mixer toys. It was not a clean project and we were quite involved in it. Possibly we were going to build some buildings out of mud if we could ever figure out how to make the runny goop stay put long enough to dry into the shapes we needed. Anyway, it was on a Sunday morning about 45 years ago. I know it was a Sunday as their mother came out to get her kids telling them they needed to get cleaned up and ready for Sunday School.
 
I had no idea school was held on Sundays. I was pretty sure our school didn’t have classes on Sundays or we would have been going to them. I’m pretty sure I make some kind of comment asking “There’s school on Sundays?” I can hear Mrs. Whatever-Her-Name-Was responding with a comment that had the word church in it somewhere. I would not have dug any further as church at that time in my life was a foreign body. Sort of like kryptonite is to Superman only without the crippling effect. It was more of a place with unknown powers to me.
 
We still played with those kids when we could for as long as they lived in the neighbourhood but I don’t ever remember the subject of Sunday School coming up again. It continued to be a mystery to me that wasn’t pressing enough for a full explanation although it was still resting somewhere in my mind waiting for an answer to solve it but without the strength to pull it out to the front of the line to explore deeper.
 
It was always a mini-mystery to me until I was saved 30 years later. By then I was married and my wife and I started to attend a local church as she felt one day we needed to go. At one of our early appearances the children were dismissed for Sunday School. That was when I asked a few questions and learned what it really was to be attending school in a church on Sunday. Now I know why there were no classes at my high school on Sundays as well.
 
I spent part of the early part of 2016 writing a daily devotional eBook. It is written in much the same way as this blog post is with a story from my life and the added bonus of how it is related to a specific scripture from The Bible. It is titled, “Clarity: 365 Ways to Find Focus.” To order your copy for $8.88 USD, click here to access the Amazon Kindle Page it is listed on.