Prayer Attitudes

Mark 6:45-46
Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat
and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.
After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.

Many times we pray, complaining and whining about our hardships or our needs. Or we tell God about our situation and issue direct orders about how we want Him to fix it. Other times we just beg. When we catch ourselves being distracted by our problems or by the gossip of the day, we should rethink our prayer attitude.

Jesus dismissed the crowd and prayed alone. He was intentionally listening with a desire to obey.

People wanted to kill him, but he didn’t let that distract him. He kept a great prayer attitude throughout his life on the earth.

When you get rid of distractions, you can focus on God. That’s why many people close their eyes during prayer. If we’re distracted by what’s around us while we’re praying, maybe we need to change locations.

Intentionally listening to God with a desire to obey means not allowing interruptions to steal your time with God. I know of a man who bought a house with one more bedroom than he needed. He called that room his prayer room. Occasionally, he locked himself in there, read his Bible, took notes, prayed, worshipped, and listened for God’s guidance. The prayer room was a place to block out all distractions. This was where he, like Jesus, went up on a mountainside to pray.

If we went to God alone everyday to listen for HIS plan for our day, how would that change what we do? Would we act on his plan or ours?