So again, I woke up with a racing mind. Many unproductive directions. An hour or two into my day I was still like, "Where is all this going?" I feel like I'm wasting precious hours of my day stuck in unproductive, unhappy cycles.
And so then I came to do this prayer time I've committed to every morning at this coffee shop. (I put it on my website so anyone could show up to join me. It holds me accountable). And since I've been committed to this prayer time I've been learning about pressing in. So as I prayed and it seemed like wasted time, like my mind was playground of unruly children running in all directions, I just kept trying. I kept pressing in.
A critical part of this blog is this little detail: I was listening to this playlist of music as I tried to pray. I often listen to it. It's my prayer time playlist.
And at about 45 minutes of sitting in silence at this coffee shop, struggling through wildly wandering thoughts I started to cry. Something was starting to engage. It was partly because of the music. I'll tell you why in a second. But first a little about the playlist.
It's a weird playlist. Like, I have Adele's "Hello" up first because she says,
Hello, it's me I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet To go over everything
and then she says,
Hello from the other side I must've called a thousand times
And I like to picture her voice as God saying, I've been waiting for you here. And she sings it with such heartbreaking longing that I begin to get an idea that God really, really wants to connect with me again.
And another song is John Mayer's "Say." I really like the song and think it applies pretty well to trying to pray. It says,
Take all of your wasted honor Every little past frustration Take all of your so-called problems, Better put 'em in quotations Say what you need to say Say what you need to say Say what you need to say
And there are also a bunch of worship songs on the playlist by John Mark McMillan and Hillsong and stuff. But I think I realized why this stuff helps me in prayer. It clicks me into a story. A story with a soundtrack. Something about soundtracks in movies tell us this moment of struggle is for a purpose. This hard emotion is beautiful and has a purpose to forwarding this beautiful story.
Clicks me into a story. Being part of a story suddenly makes things make sense. All of the wandering events and thoughts have a purpose. They all are part of this story of me wandering through a desert of distraction trying to find the love that is searching for me. And then the wandering, the pressing in no longer just feels like a random psychological lasso-ing practice, but an underdog in need fighting off enemies of distraction and depression trying to hear the voice of her lover pursuing her. And we see somewhere that her lover is pushing through all the distractions and climbing over the mountains in the landscape in pursuit of her.
Raw Spoon, Jan 11, 2020
