- Have you ever done your morning prayer time at a baseball game?
I have.
Let me tell you, it’s less than ideal.
My prayer book open on my lap during warm up–music blasting, conversations all around me . . .
Do you think I was fully immersed in my prayer? No way. I’m distracted enough at home.
So why was I doing my morning prayer time at the baseball game?
Well, my excuse is I had to be there early and I didn’t have time to do it at home.
But the truth is–I was too undisciplined to go to bed on time and so I couldn’t get up early enough to do my prayer time before we left for the game. A little planning and a little self-discipline could’ve gone a long way.
But here’s my theory–I didn’t just quit.
I said my morning prayers.
Imperfectly–yes.
But I did something. I took a less than ideal situation and I did what I could.
Now, in this situation there were things within my control, things I could’ve done better.
But sometimes we can’t. Sometimes our morning prayer time gets derailed by a sick child, a child waking up before they were supposed to, an unforeseen mess, a friend who needs to talk or some other unseeable circumstance.
Sometimes our life gets derailed.
Or maybe sometimes, we are showing up–we’re doing our adoration, our reading, our prayer time but we just can’t enter into it. Maybe we keep getting distracted or we’re so tired or our heart is heavy with worry or grief and we just don’t feel like we are all there, like we are all present.
Like I tell my kids when they start to mess around during prayer time, “you are talking to the God of the universe right now!” But sometimes it seems lost on us–even if we don’t want it to be.
And so sometimes we just do the less than ideal, and then, then we accept that we are doing what we can. Because we are showing up and putting in whatever we can.
Sometimes that less than ideal is our prayer.
Because God knows the heart. That’s what I’m sure of. That’s what I keep reminding myself in these moments that feel a bit like failure.
And then I remember. I don’t need to be the one succeeding. Just the one who keeps trying.