- Types of Prayer
- Saying thank you sorry please
- Fingertip Tips for Prayer
- Seeking Inspiration from your Surroundings
- Reflecting on your Life through Prayer
- Spiritual Exercises
- Thankfulness - the Celtic Tradition
- Work-Life Balance
- When Prayer Seems not to 'Work'
- Praying when you're Busy
- Bedtime Prayers
- John 6:16-25
Praying when you're Busy
Many of us lead busy lives in noisy places and it can be hard to see where prayer can fit in. This is not just a symptom of our modern lives, but something that has always presented a challenge to prayer.
A 17th Century monk called Brother Lawrence found it difficult to remain prayerful in the noisy surroundings of the monastery kitchen, where he spent most of his day. But he eventually found it was possible to make his very work an act of prayer, by turning his mind to God as he carried out the manual tasks of his day. Through this discipline he found that he could experience God's love in even the most mundane of tasks, by focusing his mind on the holy presence of God.
His method was later called ‘Practising the Presence of God'. Many people have found his experience inspiring, because it reminds us that God is accessible wherever we are and whatever we are doing. It is an idea which the English poet George Herbert expressed in his poem The Elixir.
A servant with this clause,
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.
This gives us the image of a servant, going about their daily sweeping but thinking about God. Such thought focuses their mind on God until they are almost sweeping the room for him. This makes the action, which would be simply hard work or ‘drudgery', an opportunity to spend time with God, making the action itself ‘divine', because prayer brings us into the presence of God.
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