Hey you guys! This is Kelsie Millet and I am your host here on the Let Him In Podcast, where
my intent is to have these episodes full of thoughts, impressions and ways for you to easily let God into your every day.
As a reminder we are going through a few of my favorite devotional/ thoughts that can be found in the book Simple Steps for More Meaningful Prayer by Leigh Brown. It is linked for you in the description below for those of you interested.
Ok, Here. We go. Today’s thought-
“The trouble with most of our prayers,” President Gordon B. Hinckley declared, “is that we give them as if we were picking up the telephone and ordering groceries- we place our order and hang up. We need to meditate, contemplate, think of what we are praying about and for and then speak to the Lord as one man speaketh to another”. When we concentrate on our petition and focus on the importance of what we are doing, the Lord will bless us. As the prophet Jacob taught, “I, Jacob, would speak into you that are pure in heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faigh, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down justice upon those who seek your destruction”.
Sincere and meaningful prayer requires a clear and alert mind. Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Fatigue tends to produce prayers that are hasty generalities. This suggests that to pray only just before retirement at the end of a taxing day is to adversely affect the content of our prayers”. Robert L. Millet noted, “Fatigue also makes it extremely difficult to enjoy our prayers…it may be worthwhile occasionally to have prayer well before going to bed while our mind and body are in a position to do more than utter a few well-worn but familiar phrases.”
I have so many thoughts on today’s devotional. One we discussed clear back in episode 3 different ways that we communicate with God, and I shared my experience of how for the longest time I talked to God, exactly how President Hinckley talked about in this devotional. It was completely one sided and it was very much a pick up the phone and hang up when I was done type of prayer.
And I would be lying if I didn’t say that these prayers still slip into my routine, and I just had to laugh when reading the end of this devotional where it talks about how much fatigue plays a role in our prayer life. Because, 100% yes. This is when my prayers go downhill quickly and I wonder how far they are making it. I am a big believer in one liner prayers and I think that sometimes they may just be the most sincere way to pray when I am fatigued to reach God.
I also truly believe and know that God sees and knows our hearts and our intents and loves and rewards any type of effort that we give. But I’m sure He also really loves and appreciates sincerity just as any of us would in conversations with those that we love and have relationships with here on earth.
I just smile as I think about this devotional because we all I think get easily sucked into these fatigue type prayers, and routine checklists and I think it’s good for us to just be aware, aware that these prayers exist and take mental note of when they are happening for ourselves.
And then maybe the answer is to make it a priority to say our evening prayers before we actually go to bed. Also making sure that we are making time at some point earlier in the day that we can have a good open and real conversation with God. That we truly do make time to connect with Him in a real way when we have a clear mind, we aren’t fatigued, and we can be open to hearing Him.
For those of you that do have the Hear Him journal, Now would be the perfect time to pull that out and continue in more stillness, an open mind and a desire to connect with God.
Love you guys!
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