Inconvenienced by God

When I first began having a consistent daily prayer time I would always pray in the morning. This was simply because that was the most convenient time, especially in the midst of a busy mission trip. So, whenever my schedule would change, I would always try to have my prayer time in the morning. And whenever I couldn't have my prayer time before 8:00 am, I would just skip it for that day, thinking that it didn't matter enough to move it. I mean, if I moved my prayer time once, then there wouldn't be a schedule, or anything consistent about it, and then it would never get done. I suppressed all thoughts about the fact that not having a prayer time once was worse than not having a daily time set aside for my prayer.

Whenever my prayer times would decrease, I would set it aside to not wanting to wake up early enough to pray. I would roll back over and sleep for another half an hour, rather than get up and pray before school. In my mind it was justified. I wasn't getting enough sleep as it was, so prayer took a back seat. I didn't think that praying was such a big deal. And even if I had, I wouldn't want prayer time at another part of the day. That would just really throw me off. Prayer was really inconvenient.

Well, now that I am in a completely different living and working situation, waking up in the mornings to pray is almost completely out of the question. I thought I was waking up early at 7:00! I am consistently waking up earlier than I ever did for school, and that is simply to catch the bus to work. Waking up an extra half hour earlier would put me at 4:30 in the morning. But I also don't want to have a prayer time in the afternoon or evening. I'm always so tired at night that I just want to go to bed, so I didn't think that evening prayer would work. That leaves the afternoons. But who wants to pray in the afternoon? That's when I get to go and act like a normal college student and hang out with others my age. I don't have much social interaction in my life, and afternoons are pretty much it. Most of my day I'm either on the bus, or stuck in the house with a 2-month-old baby. So, afternoons are right out.

Last week, I seriously began examining why I wouldn't pray at other times than in the morning. And I was struck by this thought: Do I want to pray in the mornings because I want it to happen, or because I want to get God out of the way for the rest of my day?

I had never thought about it that way before. Am I trying to pray in the mornings to simply be done with God, and go about the rest of my day? In having a morning prayer time, do I feel vindicated in not living the best life I can, because the Lord and I already had a heart-to-heart this morning? Am I putting God on the shelf? Am I putting down my bible and not taking in a word of it? Do I feel as though I've completed my Christian duty because I had a daily prayer time?

I think I know the answer to these questions.

And I realized that I am tucking God away in the pages of my prayer journal each morning, and leaving Him in my bedroom as I go about my day. The reason I am so attached to having a prayer time in the morning is not because that is the only time that it will get done; but because that is the only time that I don't feel inconvenienced by God.

Selfish much?