How’d you do? Yeah, I know you stunk at it.  How long did it take you to think about that assignment you needed to get working on or that appointment you had later today, or that conversation you had last night? 40 seconds? 30? Go ahead and admit it – you didn’t make it 20 seconds before all those thoughts started flooding in your mind.

Try this: turn off your iPod, TV, laptop, cell phone, and any other noise making device in your room and for 5 straight minutes just sit there and put a virtual recorder on your mind.  Literally just pay attention to the throngs of things your mind will dart to in that span of 300 seconds. (You may have to try this a couple times as the first time you will just be considering how awkward this exercise is).

Now continue this exercise the rest of the day.  When you are reading, talking, watching TV simply pay attention to how your mind is darting around from thing to thing.  You cant keep the TV on the same channel during commercials.  You read Facebook and your eyes dart to the right to see who’s on line, to the top to see how many messages you have.  When you are talking to your friend on the phone, you are also reading an email.  When you are sitting in your office and working on a project you check your phone for a text or start wondering what you are going to do tonight.

I’ve been doing this for the last week and have been absolutely amazed at how undisciplined I am. It’s important, though, you do these exercises and pay attention.  I know you can resonate with these things as you read them, but it is only when you experience them that you might then feel them.

I’m not trying to get all emotive on you.  I just want you to feel the weight of this problem. If I read something and resonate with it, I don’t necessarily feel the weight of the problem. Much like I can read about how sweet honey is, but when I actually go and taste it, oh it is so much better.  So you have to do the hard work of recognizing and feeling your actually worse at being a disciplined thinker than you thought.

Ok, so that’s it for today.  just give that a go, and tomorrow lets come back and try and advance the conversation.

This then led to my noticing how I had trouble paying attention to hardly anything for more than a fleeting moment. I love to read, but I began to notice how I would read an entire paragraph, get to the bottom of the line and realize I had read an entire paragraph while simultaneously thinking about that other book I was looking forward to reading.  Or, I noticed how I would play cars with Judah (making the noises…rrrrrmmm) while also having a conversation with Andi about pre-school, all at the same time.

I walk down the streets of DC listening to the wonderful strings of Yo Yo Ma on my iPhone while holding a book and also typing a text message in between strides and sentences!

My mind is the equivalent of a Jet ball thrown into a closet…and I don’t think I’m alone.

I’ve really tried to pay attention to these patterns and I’ve recently tried to work against them. How you ask? Well, that’s going to be the subject of a few posts here.

I don’t pretend to have the answers, but I do hope to expose you to the same thing I have been exposed to.  Not only that we have scattered prayer lives (I already know you are aware of that), but we are scattered in virtually all of our thinking.

After exposing the breadth of our thinness, I want us all to feel the danger and recklessness of such a pattern, and finally I hope to provide some ways to try and work against this pattern.

Feel free to follow along.  If you find this helpful, great, if not, that’s fine to.  Part of my attempting to overcome this unhealthy pattern is by writing these posts, so in the end, I could be the only one that benefits, and that will be fine.  But I do hope you can be helped along the way.

Consider an illustration of what I am trying to say. Suppose I get up in the morning and as I am walking to the bathroom I trip over some of my wife’s laundry that she left lying on the hall floor. Instead of simply moving the laundry myself and assuming the best in her, I react in a way that is all out of proportion to the situation and say something very harsh to my wife just as she is waking up. She gets up, puts the laundry away, and walks downstairs ahead of me. I can tell by the silence and from my own conscience that our relationship is in serious trouble.

As I go downstairs my conscience is condemning me. Yes, the laundry should not have been there. Yes, I might have broken my neck. But those thoughts are mainly the self-defending flesh talking. The truth is that my words were way out of line. Not only was the emotional harshness out of proportion to the seriousness of the fault, but the Bible tells me to overlook the fault. “Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Cor. 6:7).

So as I enter the kitchen there is ice in the air, and her back is blatantly toward me as she works at the kitchen counter. What needs to happen here? The answer is plain: I need to apologize and ask for forgiveness. That would be the right thing to do. But here’s the analogy: Why do I want her forgiveness? So that she will make my favorite breakfast? So that my guilt feelings will go away and I will be able to concentrate at work today? So there will be good sex tonight? So the kids won’t see us at odds? So that she will finally admit the laundry shouldn’t have been there?

It may be that every one of those desires would come true. But they are all defective motives for wanting her forgiveness. What’s missing is this: I want to be forgiven so that I will have the sweet fellowship of my wife back. She is the reason I want to be forgiven. I want the relationship restored. Forgiveness is simply a way of getting obstacles out of the way so that we can look at each other again with joy.

As we go through the book of Acts, we see Christians being persecuted for their faith.  Well that still happens today.  Yes, physical, sometimes deadly persecution for our brothers and sisters around the world.  And in 5 minutes you can pray for them.

You can read and pray over the World Watch List of 50 countries where the church is persecuted. (HT: Z)

• Religion says, I obey, therefore I’m accepted.  The gospel says, I’m accepted therefore I obey.
• Religion is defined by and focused on the rules. The gospel is defined by and focused on the gracious Ruler.
• Religion changes your behavior so you look good in front of man.  The gospel cleans your heart so you can stand in the presence of God.

All of us are like the Pharisees.  There’s part of us that like the religion and law.  Why?  Because that gives us control.  Deep down, we are do-it-yourself-God-wannabes.  We want to maintain control; we want the outcome of our lives, including our salvation in our hands.

Give me 3 steps to a happy marriage and I can guarantee myself a happy marriage – or I can be mad at God if it doesn’t happen.  Give me 5 rules to follow to ensure sexual purity or 7 steps to grow in godliness, and then I can pat myself on the back by following those rules and taking those steps. “The law seems safe because it breed’s a sense of control.  It keeps life formulaic and predictable.  It keeps earning-power in our camp.”[1]

We drift toward law because we are afraid of grace.  Grace takes control from us.  Taking hold of grace means we have to let go of self – we don’t like that.  As Michel Horton says, “The gospel of grace throws our glory train off its tracks.  Instead of calculating, mastering, and determining, we find ourselves completely helpless, left with no option but to fall into the everlasting arms of the God who could consume us in wrath but instead embraces us in his Son.”[2]

Our Father in heaven, You are the Everlasting Father of the fatherless, Heaven is Your throne and the earth is Your footstool. The heavens declare Your glory, and the sky above proclaims Your handiwork. Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

Our Father in Heaven Hallowed be Your Name From the rising of the sun to its setting, may Your Name be praised and be great among the nations! Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and your greatness is unsearchable!  Let Your glory be over all the earth! Let heaven and earth praise You, the seas and everything that moves in them, let them praise you!  May Your glory, the glory of the Lord endure forever.

O Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Your Name, Your Kingdom Come, May all the ends of the earth remember and turn to You, and all the families of the nations worship before You.  Declare your glory among the nations, your marvelous works among all the peoples from China to India to Chile to Fiji to the Philippines to Hungary to Fiji to Iceland and every tribe, tongue, nation and people! For kingship belongs to You; You rule over the nations. You are the strength of Your people -the saving refuge of Your anointed! Oh, save Your people and bless Your heritage! Be our Shepherd and carry us forever! You are our King, O God! You are the King of all the earth! Your throne is forever and ever!

Your Kingdom Come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Make us to know Your ways, O Lord. Teach us Your paths. Teach us to do Your will. Let your good Spirit lead us on level ground. Not our will, but Yours be done!  Father, we pray for the unborn this very day, for you form their inward parts; you knit them together in their mother’s womb, every child in the womb is fearfully and wonderfully made, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Give us this day our daily bread. You, our God, will supply every need of ours according to Your riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Give us neither poverty nor riches; feed us with the food that is needful for us, lest we be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest we be poor and steal and profane the name of our God. Satisfy us with righteousness and remind us You are our portion forever.  We pray for our very own members, continue to lavish your grace upon us as we strive to love you will all our heart, mind soul and strength; enable us to love her neighbor has ourselves.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  We confess our iniquity; we are sorry for our sin. Have mercy on us, O God. Help us put to death what is earthly in us: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin! For Your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon our guilt for it is great. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and You the LORD has laid on him the Christ the iniquity of us all.  For our sake You made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Evil. We do not ask that you take us out of the world, but that you keep us from the evil one. Restore us; let Your face shine, that we may be saved.  Help us take up the whole armor of God that we can withstand the schemes of the devil, praying at all times in the Spirit that we might keep alert and persevere.  For the glory of Your name, deliver us and atone for our sins, for Your name’s sake.

For Yours is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever and ever.  Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are your judgments and how inscrutable your ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from You and through You and to You are all things. To You be glory forever. Amen.

The Puritans had a saying that went something like this: “Pray God’s handwriting back to Him.”  That’s good advice for when we pray the Scriptures we can be sure that our prayer are in accordance with God’s character and will, not just random ramblings from our finite minds.  Below is the prayer I (Joey) prayed in our service yesterday based on Ephesians 1:3-14:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm.  You chose us in Christ before the ground of the world was laid to be holy and blameless before you; In your love you determined in advance to adoption us as your sons and daughters through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of your will, to the praise of your glorious grace.

Grace which you gave us in your Beloved Son through whose blood we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of Your glorious grace which you poured out on us in abundance.  In all wisdom and insight you made known to us the mystery of your will, according to your holy counsel, which you settled beforehand in Christ, in whom you will unite all things, thing in heaven and on earth.

In Jesus we obtained an inheritance, having been predestined to the purpose of the one who works out everything in accord with the counsel of his will, so that we would be a praise of his glorious grace!  We who were the first to hope in Christ, when we believed in the gospel of our salvation, have been sealed in Christ with the promised Holy Spirit; who is the down payment on what we will inherit when God redeems his own people to the praise of his glory!

We give you praise Father for you are the grand architect and designer of our creation and redemption.  We give you praise Jesus for you are the agent of our creation and redemption.  We give you praise Holy Spirit as you apply the work of creation and redemption to our hearts that we might know, praise, enjoy, and delight in Jesus the Christ.

When you don’t know what to pray, pray God’s Word back to him!

If it’s been a while, could it be that you are nibbling too much on the mediocre things of the world that you have no room left for the great things of God?  Here’s the way one pastor exposed this truth:  ”If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.” (John Piper, A Hunger For God)

May we all replace our nibbling with feasting!

Psalm 135:1–6 —