Scripture

“Therefore, you shall be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.”

~Deuteronomy 5:32, NKJV

Quote

The many minute and contemptible things that solicit our curiosity {attention} every day are pass counting.

~Augustine

I love to pray but I am amazed at the difficulty. After all this time and thousands of prayers it still remains difficult to ignore distractions. I sit down to mediate, to listen to a moving song or to pray and within a minute, some vague, meaningless, trivial thought makes a bid for my attention. Augustine used the illustration of the hound and the hare. He was talking a horseback ride through the country, admiring God’s wonderful creation and meditating on His goodness when suddenly the barking of hound gets his attention and then for the next hour, he is entertained by the chase. He confessed: a fly, a spider or a lizard can do the same thing. He said, “My heart becomes a bin for idle rubbish and this rubbish often interrupts my prayers.” He went on to confess, “My life is full of such weaknesses, and my hope is in the mercy of God.” Augustine is very fond of the word mercy; it is almost a synonym for grace in his vocabulary.

First thing I want to say is that it encourages me to know that great man like Augustine battled the same things that I do. I love to hear Andrea Bocelli sing the Lord’s Prayer. When I am focused, it will move me. I start on my knees but toward the end I am standing with hands uplifted. I got down on my knees last Saturday and hit the play button but somewhere along the way I got distracted. I can’t even remember what the distraction was and when I came to the part that makes me want to stand; I didn’t move. I was confessing to the LORD my shame of being distracted by idle rubbish. These distractions I face when attempting to pray are similar to the ones people face when listening to me preach. One thing is certain: whatever I have to say, I must say it ASAP or else I can expect the attention span of my audience to erode quickly. It is a human problem: we have a hard time paying attention.

Extra

Need a little good news: Miss Clara had a better day yesterday. My sister goes to the oncologist on August 3. If I understood Gregg’s blog, his white blood cell count needs to go up. He also said Traci loves the shopping in downtown Little Rock. Today is Nursing Home Day and a sabbath of sorts. It will be study, prayer, visitation and worship tonight.

I swallowed a lot of dust yesterday and so I woke up at 3:30 this morning with a headache. This is why the post is early.  I would have slept to 8:00 if I could have. I don’t want to go to the beach, but I would not mind a retreat. If Thomas had Wi-Fi at his cabin, I would hide out there for a day. I am taking an online course from Hillsdale College, and I need to listen to my lectures one more time before taking my final exam.

I hope you have a great day: may your news be good, and your sorrows be none. Thanks for reading the blog.

Kip Childers is touring the wild west: he is in the Tetons at present. Here is a pick of a barn with the Tetons in the background.

Confession: Kips actual pic is better than this one, but I couldn’t get my computer to upload it. It does look like the same barn.