When you have trouble keeping your mind on your Bible reading, praying, or on a sermon (never happens at Shandon – right?), here are a few tips:

1) Don’t expect too much of yourself.  When you do, in any field of endeavor -including time with God – it leads to short-term trying harder and a long-term sense of failure frequently followed by quitting.  There are parts of Scripture that are fascinating.  There are prayer needs that are riveting.  There are others that are common and everyday but still important.  Set a level of focus that is fairly normal, and if you fall below that normal level of focus, make yourself go back and start again as a discipline. 

 2) Tell yourself you’re going to have to pass a pop quiz on this passage and make yourself pay attention to the details.  While you pay attention to the details, you may be surprised at the inspiration that pops out of the page at you. 

3)  When your mind wanders during prayer, just stop.  Say, “Lord, excuse me for just a moment.”  Pick up a paper and pen or pencil and write out the distraction you have.  Then you won’t forget it and you’ll be able to go back to it and deal with it when you’re through with prayer.  As soon as you’re finished jotting down a note, just start talking with God again when you were interrupted.

4) Ask yourself, “Why am I bored with this passage of Scripture or this prayer need?”  Maybe you need to eliminate that prayer for a time.  That’s ok to do.  With Scripture, maybe you don’t have any idea why it was written in the first place.  (For example: law, genealogies.)  You can also find out from a Bible dictionary why that Scripture was written such as Nelson’s New Bible Dictionary (the best one-volume, Bible dictionary I know of at this point).  That has helped me, at times, to make difficult passages more interesting.  Also, I’ve been really rewarded by puzzling over something that is in Scripture for years (like genealogies) and finally getting it.  As one man said to me, “I wouldn’t spoil your search to understand the genealogies by telling you why they were written for anything.”  Twenty-five years later, I’m glad Dr. Nelson didn’t give me a quick and easy answer, and I’m glad the Lord made me puzzle about it.  I’m not going to tell you why either.