Thoughts

Why worry about your thoughts or wandering mind when you try to pray?  Think of prayer as a farmer going into a field to plant seed.  The farmer tosses the seed around in the field, walking back and forth among the rows.  The farmer does not have to think or pay attention to exactly where the seed falls. It falls in the field because that is where the farmer is.  Seed planting can be a mindless, rote action.  The farmer may pay attention at times, or may not.  Prayer is the field of your spiritual life.  Show up to it.  Say hello God, your will be done.  Then sit there and pay attention if you can, but attention is not crucial.  Your mind wanders at times, but you are still in your prayer place, your spiritual field, though not focused on what is going on.  What is going on is that God is at work germinating the seeds of your time in prayer.  You, like the farmer, have to show up in the field.  You think the farmer has any idea which seeds will produce how much?  No.  The farmer knows some harvest will be produced eventually, given rain, which the farmer does not control either.  Irrigation still relies on water, and the farmer cannot create water.  Just show up on a daily basis.  It keeps the weeds of bad behavior from sprouting up.