A Praying Life...

The adult Sunday School at my church is working our way through "A Praying Life" by Paul Miller (which, although I'm only 5 or 6 chapters in, I highly recommend). I was just reading it and came across this passage:

"If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You'll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can't do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray" (49).

Wow. I personally find that very convicting. Obviously there is a huge part of me that IS "quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all [I] need in life." Which...when I say it out loud, is just moronic. And yet I think there's part of every human being that feels like that's the case - if only we had a little more time, a little more money, a little more talent...surely THEN we could do x, y, or z that we want to accomplish or become because we think it would fulfill us. And yet we could have all the time, money, and talent in the world, and still have NOTHING if we didn't have the love of God.

Reading this passage came at an interesting time in my life, too. As I read it, and felt the conviction that so often I do feel like this, I almost simultaneously thought to myself, "But you don't have any time, money, or talent!" Now, this isn't 100% true, of course. But honestly, I'm ME, I'm always way overcommitted - I have no time. And I'm a grad student, trying to live off the meager sums Penn State finds it appropriate to pay me for my slave labor hard work - I have no money. And lately, especially as I've been wrestling with crazy spatial math/music and thinking about doctoral programs, I've been realizing how little I know - that I have no talent.

Jesus, like You, I cannot do life on my own. Even if I had all the time, money, and talent in the world, I could not. And I have none of those. Help me, no matter how busy, no matter how tired, to find the time to pray. "Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul" (Psalm 143:8).