We cannot pray while multi-tasking. You cannot be on multi-tasking mode and hope to have any deep experience of prayer. It will be like the conversation of two people that is frequently interrupted by the ringing of the mobile phone, and worse, when they keep answering the phone. You cannot have a deep and engaging conversation this way. Likewise, in prayer.
We are in the season of Lent, a 40-day period in the church year that has been observed by the Church since its earliest days. Lent is a time to give undivided attention to things that matter. Traditionally, it has been a time set aside for some important spiritual disciplines — such as prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We now have an opportunity again to give special attention to these holy habits that face the threat of becoming submerged in a restless sea of busy and ultimately meaningless activities and pursuits.
Single-hearted prayer helps us to find our way back to God. Or rather, it helps God to touch us deeply. We need to pray with the psalmist, “Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name” (Psalm 86:11).
An undivided heart is a gift from God, a gift that helps us to leave aside our clever multi-tasking selves, and pay total attention to God — His majestic glory, pure holiness, wise truth, compassionate mercy, transforming grace, eternal purposes and righteous ways.
With an undivided heart, we can set aside our obsessions with efficiency, success, management techniques and tools, and let God speak to us His word of truth and touch us with His Father’s love.
To go to God with an undivided heart and to pray a single-hearted and sincere prayer is to show that there is nothing and no one more important to us than the One who created us, who died for us on the cross, and who loves us with an undying love. Such undistracted prayer does not come easily for multi-tasking people. We do well to heed CS Lewis’ godly advice:
The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.
Consider this:
Why is it difficult to pray while multi-tasking? What does praying while multi-tasking say about our reverence for God?
Excerpted and adapted from Following Jesus In A Fallen World by Robert Solomon. © 2009 by Robert Solomon. Used by permission of Armour Publishing. All rights reserved.
