“Much more is accomplished by a single word of the Our Father said, now and then, from our heart, than by the whole prayer repeated many times in haste and without attention.”
–Saint Teresa
Hello!
So….uh… I hear you’ve been a bit distracted in prayer lately…
What is God going to do with you? You can’t even have a five-minute conversation with YOUR CREATOR without mulling over how tacos sound for dinner.
What a sinner. God must need a lot of patience to deal with you.
And with me.
And with every other human on the planet.
Nobody likes coming out of prayer knowing they spent at least a third of it thinking about the cute boy they bumped into at the grocery store. It’s easy to get discouraged and to think what is the point of trying.
But LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING!
God understands. AND LOVES YOU ANYWAY!
Woah.
Ever since the apple, our perfect union with God has been spliced. Our wills have been weakened, and our intellects have been darkened.
So, it’s much harder to do as we know we should. As St. Paul says,
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot do what is good. For I do not do the good I desire; rather, it is the evil I do not desire that I end up doing.”
Romans 7:18-19
What a mouthful. To break it down, St. Paul is saying that he desires good, but for some reason (the fall), he still chooses evil. I’m sure we have all had that experience of deciding to eat healthier, then an hour later, eat the donut sitting on the counter. We know what we should do, but our self-discipline does not cooperate.
While getting distracted in prayer is not evil, it is certainly a sign of our weakened will.
But do we really think God left us without any tool to work through this? Without any graces to help?
Well, I’ve been doing the whole praying thing for about five years now, and I still struggle, so I decided to do a little research and share what I discovered here. So, here are the 9 tips I found to stay focused in prayer.
1) Quiet Your Mind Beforehand
While this may not always be an option, spending the time before you enter into prayer in quiet begins to slow your mind down, so squirrels aren’t running wild in your mind. What this means for me is praying right when I wake up, but after I make my to-do list. Or if I’m driving to the chapel for prayer, keeping the radio off. Or before mass, instead of listening to music or a podcast in the shower, I let the silence and sound of the water calm my mind.
2)Ask The Holy Spirit to Guide Your Prayer
Either with an already-written prayer or just on your own, this can change the trajectory of your prayer. The holy spirit, also known as the Advocate, was literally left on this earth to guide us. Yet it’s so easy to forget to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help in the simplest things, let alone prayer. IT LITERALLY SAYS IN ROMANS 8: 26-27,
“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
So uhm… maybe we should do that.
3)Ask Mother Mary and St. Michael For Intercession
I was once listening to a podcast with GabiAfterHours, and he described how he starts prayer. He said to close your eyes and picture Mary sitting next to you. Let her put her arm around you and point you to Jesus, asking for her intercession. After all, Mary wants nothing more than to bring you to her Son, so who better to ask for intercession from? Gabi also mentioned praying the St. Micheal prayer or simply asking St. Micheal to protect you during this time of prayer and to ward off distractions.
4)Silence Your Dang Phone
This should be a duh moment, but I’ve found myself praying in the chapel and getting distracted by incoming texts. Your mind distracts you enough as it is, so when you are entering into prayer, put yourself in an environment where any kind of distraction is avoidable. Let’s set ourselves up for success. It just takes a bit of intentionality, which I know you’re capable of.
5)Bring a Post-It Note
As thoughts do enter your head about things that you need to do later, write them down on a post-it note. This gives your brain an opportunity to let them go in peace so they don’t need to play in the back of your mind. This helps when you are unable to sleep at night as well to calm your mind. I know when I go through my list of intentions during prayer, it reminds me of all the text messages I haven’t sent. Writing them down on a post-it note puts my mind at ease.
6)Be Aware of The Frequency of Distraction
I’ve heard it said that sometimes God uses distractions to communicate with us. If you write a distraction down, and it still comes back to your mind a few times, ask the Lord why it’s coming back to you. Pray with that distraction because God may be trying to tell you something. If you’re constantly being distracted by a financial thing, maybe He is giving you an opportunity to detach from money. If a fight with your mom continues to weave its way back in, maybe God’s asking you to humble yourself to see where you went wrong or to forgive (if this is you, definitely check out my post on forgiveness!) The Catechism of the Catholic Church addresses this saying,
“To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart: for a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to, and this humble awareness before the Lord should awaken our preferential love for him and lead us resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified. Therein lies the battle, the choice of which master to serve.”
CCC 2729
7)Bring a Journal To Prayer
Especially if you are really struggling with distraction, journaling out your thoughts and prayers is helpful. It’s a more active task to focus your attention on. Then, when distractions do come up, the journal page shows you right where you left off. Plus, it’s inspiring to read back on your entries to see your growth and answered prayers.
My little brother got me this one for my birthday that I absolutely love! There are so many cute ones out there so definitely invest!
8) Don’t Pray in Your Bed
You will fall asleep. I can almost promise you that. Sit at your desk and pray if you truly desire to have good and focused prayer. I’m not saying it can’t happen in your bed, I’m just saying the chances of focused prayer go way down. So do yourself a favor and pray just about anywhere but your bed. I like to write out prayers and have pictures that remind me of God hanging above my desk for when I pray.
9) Don’t Get Frustrated
We are indeed human, and God does indeed know this. How much more beautiful does God find our prayer when he knows we are fighting for it, some days tooth and nail. He is there in the struggle and rejoices each time we turn our attention back to Him. Just like when a baby learns to walk, yet falls several times to reach his mother, are not his parents over joyed that the baby continues to get back up with a joy-filled smile and continue its journey across the living room? Satan wins the moment you let your distractions discourage you from praying.
So yes, distraction in prayer sucks, but we can choose how we deal with it. We can let distractions discourage us or show God our deeper desire for Him. Like anything, the more we enter into intentional prayer, the better we get. The first time I lifted at the gym, I could barely walk after squatting just the bar, but now my capacity has grown through years of time and practice. Prayer is like a muscle. Keep flexing it, and you will see improvement.
Praying for you always,
XOXO
Rory
What are your thoughts?