Learn. Pray. Experience God's power.

Sometimes, it’s hard to have a long-distance relationship with God. We can’t see Him working all the time, or at least how we want Him to. We get lonely, and sometimes conversations feel one-way. Most frequently, I find myself getting busy. Today, scientists are finding that our attention span has decreased dramatically even within the past twenty years, from two and a half minutes to less than forty-five seconds. With instant gratification on the rise, this number continues to decline. So, how can we encourage ourselves to focus on something that is not desperately trying to grab our attention within the first 8 seconds?

I’m not going to lie to you, it can be a challenge… But who doesn’t love a challenge?

Prayer is an obvious place to start.

To begin with, Matthew 6:5 points out that the most important thing to remember is our personal focus on God. It doesn’t matter what others expect from us. And it doesn’t matter who sees. In fact, Jesus even encourages us to pray in our closets rather than praying where we might be distracted by the people around us and tempted to pray to impress others instead of keeping our focus on connecting with God. God wants us to keep it real - where it’s all about us and Him.

It’s shortly after this that Jesus actually tells us how to forge this personal communication, in a simple process.

“...Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.’’

Matthew 6:9-14, NIV

This prayer alone could have a whole sermon dedicated to its unpacking (as I’m sure has been done many times); however, to summarize briefly:

We begin by recognizing God’s greatness and our submission to His will. For He is the Authority over both heaven and earth, so He knows what He’s doing, and we welcome this help into our lives.
We then speak about bread, a phrase that is luckily partially explained by the subsequent sentence. This phrase seems to refer to more than just food, but also Jesus’ frequent use of the metaphor of ‘bread’ as the substance of life—both God’s providence for physical needs such as food and spiritual needs such as forgiveness (see John 6:25-29 for further explanation).
Finally, Jesus encourages us to again reaffirm our wish to be aligned with God’s will, rather than be distracted by sin and its temptations. Obviously, it’s really difficult to not be led astray all the time. Jesus understands this, as he encourages us to ask for God’s assistance in overcoming temptation. It’s clear here that God delivers us - we cannot save ourselves.

1Now, in applying this to our daily lives, we all seem to have a general understanding that we aren’t to just copy and paste these words into our own prayers, rather we are to view this as a guide as we personally communicate all our ‘cares’ and ‘burdens’ and ‘thankfulness’ (Psalm 55:22, Psalm 106:1).

As previously outlined, this desire to connect with God may come with challenges, as the world tries its best to distract and discourage us from our pursuit of connection with God. To assist in remedying this, there are a number of ways that we can take our less-than-a-minute attention spans and make them focus on God. Some popular ideas include:

Journaling

Many people find journaling a great way to spend time with God, as it may make it easier to stay on task, and have that sense of relief after. It also can be great for looking back at past prayers and experiences, and seeing how God has worked in your life.

Prayer guidelines

Guidelines such as the SOAP method (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer) can be amazing in terms of helping you to get into the habit of connecting with God throughout your everyday life, as we incorporate many of the key factors into one process, allowing us to see the interconnectedness of God’s love.

Routine

Incorporating prayer and Bible study into your routine can be a great way to make sure you’re getting that consistent connection. Just like remembering to brush your teeth straight before bed, making prayer a habit can be really useful in remembering to consistently check-in with God.

But connection with God doesn’t always have to be through individual prayer! As seen in Jesus’ ministry, while He always took time out with God (as exemplified in Matthew 14:23), He also spent time communing with others in many spaces, such as when He traveled and taught the disciples throughout the New Testament, shared meals at many homes (Luke 19:5) and attended the synagogue (similar to our church), even as a child (Luke 2:43-46).

God gave us many different ways to express our love to both others and to Him, as recorded many times in the Bible. Solomon fondly speaks about nature throughout the Songs of Solomon, which I personally understand. Being out in nature is uplifting: it gives me the space from the busyness of the world that I need to find time out with God. His greatness is easy to see when you can feel the crash of the ocean, or hear gentle birdsongs. Others find God through music, as David did in Psalms (a whole book of songs), as they sing and create and praise. There is also joy in serving others, whether through hosting or healing, as was frequently seen in the disciples journeys throughout the New Testament. We don’t have to separate our daily actions from connection with God; rather connect with Him throughout it.

Overall, God’s greatest request is that we remain honest and genuine in our talks with Him. While this is often hard to achieve as we get so easily distracted by the world, there are several ways in which we can encourage this connection with God to remain true and frequent. God gives us many chances to connect with Him if we just give Him space to work. So take a break from your phone, and allow Him to join you wherever you are in your daily life, both alone and while ‘busy.’

To read more about different types of worship, follow along with this series as we discover how to connect more deeply with God. Alternatively, head over to our course page here to dive deeper into God’s word and learn how to have a closer and more intimate relationship with Him.

Connecting with God