When and How?

Guys, my prayer life sucks. And the worst part is, I don't really care. I mean, I care, but I haven't really prayed in a week and I can't find the motivation to start again. Everything is harddddd. Ugh.

Last night my discipleship group was discussing the story of Noah. Two things really struck me:

1. Noah is all about action
2. Noah's faith was pretty insane

God told Noah to do something and he did it. Even though it was out-of-control crazy. Like build-a-1.5-football-field-long-boat-in-the-middle-of-the-desert kind of crazy. What faith! Mark Hart asks the video-kids if they would do something like this if God asked them to. When they say yes, he challenges them, "would you really do it? Isn't God talking to you now?" My girls started talking about this and all I could wonder was what God is asking me to do that I'm just not taking action on.

We kept talking about this and after getting really distracted by this strange children's church song, we talked about how none of us are where we want to be in our relationship with God right now because we are being lazy. Regina then hit us with this smack-in-the-face challenge from her uncle about prayer:

"The question you need to ask yourself is, 'when and how can I pray' instead of listing the excuses for why you can't pray."

Yep. I have a half hour of prayer built into my schedule every day at work. Why am I not praying? The holy sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated (almost) every day at the office. Why am I not going to Mass?

To continue my laundry list of excuses, I'm getting sucked into the busyness of Conference season. I think, "well, God called me to the Events Team, which means He called me to a busy state of life right now...I have to answer these 27 emails. I can't go to Mass/pray!" I'm lacking accountability. Nothing happens if I don't go to Mass or prayer (except me continuing to separate myself from Jesus). 

My girls are lacking accountability as well. So we made a goal and we're texting each other each day to remind each other to pray. Some of them are making gratitude lists, some are praying the rosary, some are praying for 5 extra minutes in the morning. I'm going to go to my scheduled Mass and prayer time and just to sit, for ten minutes, with Jesus. That my when and how. No more excuses. It's time to put Jesus back at the center of my life.

Thanks, Dana, for your inspiration.