Sunday afternoon, toward evening, is when many people feel that internal spring in their gut start to tighten in preparation for the inevitable Monday morning alarm clock. Even throughout the week, if someone asks me how things are going, I tell them I feel like I was shot out of a cannon. Fast start, up and at ’em, tearing through the day from one thing to the next. Next day repeat. Boom! Boom! Boom! The need for speed isn’t necessarily bad – it’s exhilarating for most of us actually. The danger of this rush-rush mindset is that if you haven’t oriented a part of each day to some level of devotion to God. It just won’t happen – at least until Sunday rolls around. You know it and I know it.
Praying can be for many like the “dental flossing” of our spiritual health. The dentist always asks (and they know already so don’t kid yourself) how often you floss. You intend to do it daily but that quickly devolves to weekly, monthly, quarterly then to just a few days before the next check-up. This is very much like our prayer life can end up – done very seldom or during emergencies.
At the beginning of Chapter 2 in Saint Augustine’s autobiography, The Confessions, he asks, “How should I call upon my God, my God and my Lord, when the very act of calling him I would be calling him into myself? Is there any place within me into which my God might come? Is there any room in me for you, Lord, my God?”
Praying even a single short prayer as part of your daily routine makes space in your busy day for God but more importantly, it makes room in you for God.
