While Walking to Class...

  So, this little story is more of a personal one, with application to every situation in life.  Here we go, I was walking to take my history exam (which I was vastly underprepared for) I found myself doing what I always do, I was praying.  Now I went, took the exam and probably earned a pretty good grade on it, but on the way home I was thanking God for the exam, and when I got back to my dorm I sat on my bed and realized something.  How often is it that we approach God in prayer when we need something?  How often is our prayer centered on things we want accomplished?  I was talking to a friend the other day, a good friend I might add, and they were upset by a death in the family.  She told me she was frustrated that God chose not to answer her prayers to save her beloved family member.  I quickly, in a loving manner, corrected her saying God did answer her prayers, just not in the way she wanted them to be answered.  Let me break this down further.
  It is so easy for us to approach God with everything that we want, things that we think we need.  We get in our favorite prayer position, and then we start reading off this list we have in our minds.  I think we are missing something here.  I am just as guilty, my mind is always flowing with people I need to pray for, things I think I need as well as miscellaneous things that happened throughout the day.  I come to my prayer time, and my thoughts are too cluttered to get anything out of it.  I cannot hear what I need to, because instead of listening, my mind just continues to think of stuff to keep saying.  When I first started to go to adoration this was a huge problem for me.  After about fifteen minutes of the hour, I ran out of things to say, I quickly got bored and my mind wandered.  I still struggle with this today, but I have come up with a kind of solution to my cluttered prayer.
  My solution is simple.  God knows what we are thinking, but possibly more importantly, he knows what we truly need.  Whenever we ask God for something, its only what we think we want, he knows what we want.  So here is what I have begun doing, I start my prayer out a little like this "God you know exactly what I would say before I even have the chance to think it, you know what must happen, let it be done according to your will."  And after that, I sit in silence and say nothing.  I sit in the presence of God and listen for his whispers.  This clears my head of everything I thought I needed to pray for, and gives me what I truly need and seek, a Union with God in the Trinity.  So brothers and sisters, dedicate some time to unclutter your prayer, and I think you will find what you truly seek.