I’ve never been a stellar pray-er, meaning: 1) I’ve spent great chunks of my life not praying; 2) the time I have spent has been largely about begging for things or situations to change; and 3) I’ve not been consistent about it. But lately I have been consistent, and I’m working on prayer that isn’t all about me, but is about others as well as me.

The procrastination part of this post is not about it me, though. It comes from my childish view that sometimes jumps into my head, telling me that God is procrastinating. It is amazing and laughable how often I think, “He needs to get on the stick and answer my (perfectly reasonable/really important and noble/no-brainer) prayer.”

I HATE that I am relegated to God’s timing. I can’t emphasize that enough. I just hate it. The reason I hate it is because of something I tend to do: I switch our roles in one respect. I delude myself that I am all-seeing and that he is wearing my myopic, human, less than 20/20 glasses.

Obviously, I don’t want to switch ALL of our roles. I don’t want to love everyone all the time even when they are stupid and wrong and evil. I don’t want forgive everyone who has wronged me or others. I really don’t want to listen to every prayer out there, many of which I would believe to be silly and a waste of divine time.

But I do want his eyes. Rather, and I’m ashamed to admit this, I sometimes believe I have his eyes. I believe that what I see right now (the particular family feud that could be nipped in the bud if everyone would listen to me and do what I do, the Facebook post that seems rude and hateful that can only be made right by my reply, and other self-righteous thoughts that fly through my head) is not only right, but is also the universe of all there is to see and know about the situation. Invariably, I am wrong, and I have only about 20% of the true story.

I need to pray more and stop worrying about God’s “procrastination.”

Though if he could get on the stick about finding me a job, that’d be awesome. (Amen?)