How to Pray When Your Mind Keeps Wandering

Most of us know the moment. You bow your head, you begin to pray, and a minute later you are thinking about the dentist, the grocery list or something a neighbor said last week. It can feel like failure. It is not. Gavin Ortlund, in an article for The Gospel Coalition, lays out seven plain ways to fight distraction in prayer.

Pray with Scripture. Ortlund says Scripture teaches us how to pray much as a mother teaches a child how to talk. The Bible, he writes, rebukes our shallow, self-oriented prayers and lifts them toward God's glory, the church, eternity and the advance of the gospel. He suggests praying through biblical prayers such as Nehemiah 1:5-11, Daniel 9:1-19, 2 Chronicles 20:1-12 and Ephesians 3:14-21, and he calls the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 a great one to start with.

Write it down. Ortlund finds it helpful, now and then, to write out a prayer. Written prayer should not replace spoken or silent prayer, he says, but it works well as a supplement. Writing brings a discipline that makes it harder to drift. There is a bonus: years later you can look back and see how God answered, or, more often in his experience, how God changed what you pray for.

Get quiet, and do not always pray alone. Ortlund points out that Jesus often went off by himself to pray (Mark 1:35). If we are scattered and distracted all day, he writes, we should not be surprised to be scattered in prayer. Fasting pairs well with prayer, since an empty stomach reminds us to pray. And corporate prayer and private prayer fuel one another: what we see God do in the prayers of others teaches us how to pray at home.

Pray with purpose, and pray about the distraction itself. Ortlund structures his prayer time, sometimes around one aspect of God's character. When the same worry keeps breaking in, he suggests praying about that very thing and turning the distraction into an opportunity: “Lord, I am distracted today by ______. I give this to you. . . .” The thing that pulled you away becomes the thing you bring to God.

Talk back to your feelings, and return to the gospel. Ortlund notes that David questions his own soul in Psalm 42:5 and reasons with his fears in Psalm 27:1. If boredom or anxiety pulls you away, answer it with the truth. And if all else fails, keep circling back to the gospel. It is hard to daydream, he writes, when your heart and mind are fixed on the great truths of hell, heaven and Calvary. Make them the North Star of your prayer life.

Ortlund begins with a confession that many readers will recognize. He has been trying to pray more this year, he writes, but prayer does not always come easily to him. He sits down with the best of intentions and catches himself a few moments later daydreaming about yesterday's conversation, tomorrow's meeting or next week's vacation. Distraction is a real hindrance, he says, but he is also finding that it gives an opportunity for growth.

Two more points from his article round out his advice. The first is social media. Ortlund writes that he must fast from it, because it speeds up the flow of information, clutters the mind and weakens our capacity for quiet, reflection and meditation, so the move from hours of scrolling to lingering before the Lord is not an easy one. The second is a caution about feelings. He warns against trying to force emotions we think we should feel, and against letting our emotions rule the will unchecked, and he notes that David also calls upon his own soul to bless the Lord in Psalm 103:1. His closing point borrows from Charles Spurgeon, who told preachers that if they ever lose their place in a sermon, they should go straight to the gospel. Ortlund says the same instinct serves us well in prayer.

Scripture: Nehemiah 1:5-11, Daniel 9:1-19, Ephesians 3:14-21, Matthew 6:9-13, Mark 1:35, Psalm 42:5