So, you sit down to have your quiet time, breathe deeply and start to focus in on God.  Then you remember that you must get some toilet roll when you do the shopping later.  Oh, and you mustn’t forget to post that birthday card today.  You really must sort out your diary and get more organised.  In fact, the whole house needs a good clear out and reorganisation!  All of a sudden you’ve forgotten all about God and are planning the storage system you’d love to sort out for your undies!  How do we pray when it’s so hard to concentrate and there’s just so many distractions?
This scenario is all too familiar for me.  I try so hard to focus when praying, but more often than not my mind drifts and I have to pull it back to God and what I was supposed to be praying about. I just find it so hard to concentrate on prayer.
And it doesn’t seem to matter what sort of prayer it is.
If I’m listening to someone lead the intercessions in church my mind wanders.
If someone prays in a group prayer session for longer than about 30 seconds my mind wanders.
If I’m asked to sit and listen to God for an extended period of silence my mind wanders.
Maybe it’s just me and I have a very poor attention span and suffer from some sort of spiritual attention deficit disorder, but try as I might I cannot control this butterfly brain of mine.
When it comes to my own quiet time I not only have the distractions going on in my head to deal with, but trying to find a quiet time and space in our household so I can pray without interruptions sometimes feels like an impossible task.
I try to wake up early before everyone else for my quiet time as this time of day works best for me and I enjoy the stillness before I face the demands of the day.
However, all too often no matter how quietly I sneak downstairs one of my little darlings’ radar systems detect that Mummy is up and they rush downstairs to join me for a cuddle and to have some before-breakfast TV time.  The hopes I had for holy stillness with candles and peaceful music to help me concentrate on prayer are shattered as I try to read my Bible and pray with to the accompaniment of Scooby Doo!
It would be easy to beat myself up about my inadequacies of focusing in prayer and in my discouragement let my prayer life get tarnished by feelings of failure and ineptitude.  However, as I read the Gospels, yet again I am encouraged so much by the disciples’ experiences of prayer and how Jesus responded to their mistakes and inadequacies.
Then Jesus went with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.”  He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled.  Then He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.  Stay here and keep watch with me.”Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me.  Yet not as I will, but as You will.Then He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping.  “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?”  He asked Peter.  “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.  The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”
Matthew 26:36-41