This is the October writing challenge from Five Minute Friday. The plan is to successfully post everyday. We write for five minutes (unedited and that’s a challenge) and stop. Visit FMF to see more posts. 

Start – 

James 5:16 The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. (NASB)

My prayer time is brief but frequent. I pray short prayers throughout the day. That’s what were instructed to do (I Thes 5:17) right? I try to pray for longer periods of time, because I truly want to spend time with God, but in a minute or two my mind seems to wonder from one thing to another and before I know it I’ve lost the next five minutes. I quickly ask God to fasten the helmet of salvation tightly on my head to protect and focus my thoughts on His word (Ephes 6:17).

Lately, though, my mind is wandering to the same unsettled place and now I’ll call it what it is—fretting. I’m painting scenarios of shoulda-coulda-woulda’s and if-ida’s, wasting the precious few moments I have at the start of my day. Psalm 37 cleary repeats do not fret. I’m getting better at catching myself, and I’ll continue working on it. I Promise.

I want to change things up so that I can spend more time in prayer and writing, and less fretting. Somehow, I don’t expect the fretting to subside or the writing improve unless the prayer time becomes more focused. More importantly, our relationship with Christ deepens in prayer. I know this from experience and want to experience it again.

Where do I find more time to pray or write? I went over my typical schedule and discovered a few things:

• I do prioritize quiet time the morning, but I’m not consistently in prayer or study. More and more, I rely on audio or video teaching instead of my bible. They are good teachers, just not THE Teacher.
• I go into work and try to write at lunch, but usually end up running errands.
• My brief prayers from the driver’s seat cease upon arrival in my driveway.
• I make dinner or bring in the take-out.
• Clean-up.
• What’s left of the day is about two – three hours in front of the TV.
• I shoot a quick prayer and favorite verse up to the Lord and fall asleep usually after 11:00 PM, maybe even midnight .
• By Thursday morning, I’m pretty tired and hitting the snooze button making my prayer time more brief and sleepy.

The effective prayer of a righteous man, or woman, accomplishes much. My praying on the run or with only one eye open, that’s not always effective. That isn’t to say that I’ll stop my brief conversations with Jesus throughout the day, just that it’s time to work on my relationship with Him. I love the glimpses of God I get throughout the day, I just want more. Don’t you?