Article November 10, 2014 Issue

Undistracted prayer

Brian Asher

Had the afternoon really passed that quickly? A couple of hours earlier I had settled down to pray because I wanted spiritual guidance about a job decision I would need to make, and the time had flown by. Though I had read a couple of good articles on JSH-Online.com about listening to God, and about His unerring guidance, I didn’t feel that I had gained the deep understanding of my inseparability from God, which comes when we turn to Him in dedicated, heartfelt prayer.

I then glanced up at my computer screen to see six tabs open: my email, Facebook, espn.com, a fantasy baseball league website, a YouTube video, and a marathon website. All of these tabs I had been checking during the past couple of hours.

I’d been bouncing back and forth like a pinball between prayer and baseball scores, messages, videos, and whatever else competed for my attention.