Distractions

This last week I was again reading, "Prayer" by Phillip Yancey. In it Yancey said that Martin Luther occasionally struggled with the discipline of prayer. According to Yancey, Luther said that at the moment he earnestly begins to spend a season of time in prayer he would be besieged by every imaginable stray thought you could imagine.
I know that this is not only true for Martin Luther, it is also true for me. The moment that I engage my mind in prayer to the almighty creator of the universe, the moment that I bow down low to him, the moment that I beseech, beg, proclaim, petition or pray, an awesome avalanche of unrequested thoughts assail me. I wonder about my new job. I wonder about my old job. I wonder about my son, my wife, my staff, my church, my finances...all of it comes crashing down on top of me like a ton of...well, like an avalanche.
Of course these are the very things that I should be submitting to God in prayer; I know that. But you must understand that these thoughts are not prayers. They are worries and anxieties born out of the idea that I am master of my fate. If my finances are in a mess I must be the one to fix them. If my marriage is in a mess I must fix that as well.
It is these very efforts to solve my own problems that ruin my prayer life. Martin Luther blamed the devil. Usually I shy away from such mystical explanations. Instead, I choose to believe in an omnipotent God, one who gives the devil his marching orders, one who knows every step of wily one and counters it with beneficence for his children.
This time, however, I think that Luther is right. It is in this very area of prayer that Satan does his most serious damage. This is exactly what happened to Adam and Eve. "Did God really say?" "But you could be like him, you know?" "You could control your own destiny."
I must admit that I almost always buy the devil's argument. I rush to solve the things vexing me with ineffective mental effort and poorly laid plans at the expense of time with God.
I am Adam again. "God, I must handle this. It requires my immediate attention."
Somehow I must realize that problems and anxieties are not randomly cast into my path to test my character or endurance. Instead, they are opportunities to be who I was created to be, a companion of the living God.