Excited Utterance Praying

Day two of 31 Days of Prayer, and I'm going to jump right in and get honest. 

My prayer life sucks. 

"Oh dear Jesus please don't let me lose my ever lovin mind!!!" 

"Oh Praise the Lord that parking spot next to the cart corral is open!!"

"God in Heaven give me strength or someone is going to end up on permanent timeout. For. Ev. Er."

I hate to admit it but a lot of my "prayers" sound like this. I'm not saying I don't ever pray in a more intentional way, I'm just saying the majority of my prayers through the day are less intentional, less about God, less about my relationship with Him, and more like observations...okay they're more like complaints thinly veiled as prayers. They are a stream of moment based blips that are born in my selfishness, my impatience and my lack of grace.

In the legal system they call this kind of outburst an excited utterance. In court an excited utterance is an exception to the hearsay rule. This means that a statement about an event made while the person is still under the stress of that event is permissible as evidence in court in a way that thoughts and statements about an event made after the fact are not. You still with me? The thought process is that an outburst made in the heat of the moment will be trustworthy because the person hasn't had time to reflect on, analyze or fabricate anything. The Bible says something similar in Luke, "from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (6.45b). 

In my excited utterance prayers, before I've had the chance to reflect and analyze what I want to say to God, I speak from the abundance of my heart, and my "prayers" show a selfish, impatient heart without grace. 

If I want to change my prayer life I need to ask myself this: if the majority of my prayer life is in the moment prayers, and the majority of those prayers are not growing me spiritually or glorifying the Lord, then what is their purpose? And how can I develop "excited utterance" prayers that DO grow me and glorify the Lord? How do I change my heart?

Ready for some good news? I can't change my heart. And the Lord never asked me to. What He asks is that I open the door and give Him the opportunity to change my heart. The moment that excited utterance prayer is out there for me to see and reflect on I can make a choice, let it stand or take the opportunity to utter another, more intentional prayer, one that invites the Lord to redirect my thoughts and to teach me patience, selflessness and humility. I have the opportunity to open the door and let Him change my heart. So that is my challenge to myself starting today, and my challenge to you (whoever you are) too. Let's make the first step in developing a vibrant prayer life be to let the Lord direct our hearts. 

Till tomorrow. 

31 Days of Prayer {in the trenches}

Over the next 31 days I am going to be posting a blog EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I know, you got tingles, huh.

In part this is a personal writing challenge, to be disciplined and consistent in writing and to plug in to an audience of other bloggers who can supply feedback and {constructive} criticism and support. This is big for me because I don't actually consider myself a blogger. I've had a blog for over ten years (I don't want to talk about that very scary fact) but don't post much and only usually when I have something to say that I can't hold in. I'd like to be more consistent, if just to exercise some discipline. 

But the larger part of this is an opportunity to spend 31 days talking about something I highly value, something that's been on my heart in a big way recently: prayer. Over the next month I hope to talk about the spiritual discipline of prayer, it's importance in our spiritual growth, and some applicable steps to strengthen your prayer life and mine. As a stay at home mom it can be hard to carve out prayer time, and so often my prayers sound more like desperate pleas for help or sanity than an intentional daily practice. I want to explore how to develop and maintain a healthy and intentional prayer life as a busy mom. 

This post will serve as the index. Below is a list of all future posts in this challenge, as I write each I will come back and insert the link so that each day becomes clickable. Neat, huh? 

So this is day one, and now you know what to expect from the next 30 days. See you tomorrow! 

31 Days of Writing 

Day 2 - Excited Utterance Praying

Day 3 - Handwritten Friday

Day 4 - Obedient Prayer

Day 5 - The Purpose of Prayer

Day 6 - Let's Call Day 6 A Wash

Day 7 - S.T.O.P.

Day 8 - The Hard Part

Day 9 - Day Nine

Day 10 - Hand Written Fridays pt. 2

Day 11 - Are We There Yet?

Day 12 - What I've Learned

Day 13 - BE BRAVE!!

Day 14 

Day 15 

Day 16

Day 17 

Day 18 

Day 19 

Day 20 

Day 21

Day 22 

Day 23 

Day 24 

Day 25 

Day 26 

Day 27 

Day 28 

Day 29 

Day 30 

Day 31 

Indefinite Hiatus

In the world of music we all know "indefinite hiatus" really means "we hate each other and we're breaking up forever".  

Facebook and I are on an indefinite hiatus. Maybe it'll be a Sonic Youth length hiatus, maybe it'll be Foo Fighters length. I'm not totally sure the length of it. All I know is I cannot scroll through my feed one more time. So I'm done and retreating to the quippy land of Twitter and substantially more encouraging and uplifting and blissfully filtered world of Instagram. 

Which brings me to my hiatus terms. My other social media accounts are still active and actively connected to my Facebook, so posts will still roll through. In essence my posting won't change, it just won't be coming from Facebook, and I won't be logging into Facebook to check it. It's like that obnoxious thing bands do when they go on hiatus but then members make music together that sounds identical to the old band but they have a new name. 

When bands go on hiatus they very rarely give a reason, at least not a real one. But since I'm a person and not actually a band I'm going to give the why. This morning when scrolling through Facebook I saw in order: 

   - a post stating Michael Brown got what he deserved 

   - the video of Andrew Wheeler (18) physically assaulting autistic teenager Aaron Hill (16) 

   - an uninformed and entirel repugnant analysis of goings on in the Middle East

   - an insensitive and largely unChristian response to the passing of Robin Williams 

And I broke. Today Facebook made the world look dark and broken, which it is. But it also made the world look beyond redemption, which it is not. My God is bigger than all of this and He can redeem all things. And beyond that He is the author and creator of every good thing. There is tragedy and it doesn't do any good to pretend there isn't. But there is beauty. There is hope. There is cool summer evenings, and swimming in clear water, and climbing trees, and being kissed by someone who loves you. There is tragedy and we can't forget that, but as a Christian I can't forget the beauty of God's creation either. And Facebook makes you forget. 

So I'm leaving Facebook for a while to only focus on what is uplifting. Don't mistake this for burying my head in the sand. It's not. I will stay informed (from credible news sources) and I will form opinions, but those opinions will be shared over coffee and a meal and not over internet wires. I will find ways to impart change instead of just wish for it from behind a screen. And I will stay connected to Real Life Friends through REAL LIFE. Feel free to connect with me through Instagram or Twitter or my email address (abrostad@gmail.com) or my phone number. Let's have coffee and have an actual conversation about how wonderful the world can be, and yes how dark sometimes too.