Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Sunday, 6 July 2014 "Prayer Tip"

Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Sunday, 6 July 2014 "Prayer Tip"
Prayer Tip:
This week in the GPS Guide, we will be led to "unpack" the prayer Jesus taught us, the prayer we call The Lord's Prayer. This GPS guide will be a great gift if you follow each day and focus on these words you may say every day, or at least once a week in worship without giving them a lot of thought. Don't miss the daily guide this week! You won't say or think about this prayer the same way again.
For many of us, things like The Lord's Prayer can become a mind-wandering memory exercise instead of a guide to communication with the Creator of the Universe. Sometimes we feel like all of our prayers are mind-wandering, meandering words and not really an experience of God's holy presence. I confess, I can settle in to a time of prayer and suddenly discover myself making my grocery list or rehashing a conversation with someone I meant to be praying for. Focus, even in prayer, can be hard.
Here are some tools that I, and others have used successfully to help focus our wandering minds and hearts and enter into a real experience of sitting in God's presence, talking and listening to our Lord.

• Making a special Sacred Space for daily prayer. It doesn't have to be elaborate. It can be a corner of a room, a chair on the deck or porch, or even a closet. It needs to be quiet, and out of the traffic pattern of daily life as much as possible. (Here, I can't help but think of Susannah Wesley, praying with her apron over her head while her numerous children surrounded her – we do what we can!). You may want to leave the space completely plain, or add a few items that help you focus, such as a candle, a cross, picture, or other item you can use as a visual focal point.
• If you have trouble physically settling into prayer something to hold in your hand, like a cross, prayer beads, or even a small stone can be calming and help in focus. I know some knitters who find their deepest times of prayer while their hands are busy knitting prayer shawls.
• Pen and paper. You can use these in two ways. One is to write your prayers, sort of as a letter to God. Some of us express ourselves and hold our thoughts better on paper than we do in our minds or out loud. Another way to use pen and paper to help focus your prayer time is, when something like that grocery list or the sudden worry that you left the iron on interrupts your prayers, stop for a moment, write it down and then physically put it aside, clearing your mind. For some of us who truly struggle with focus, or for habitual multi-taskers, this can be a great tool.

As we will see in the unpacking and examination of The Lord's Prayer this week, prayer is meant to be a combination of praise, confession, petition, and even more praise. We hope some of these tools will help you become the pray-ers we all want and need to be.(Jennifer Creagar, Prayer Ministry)
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