I am not going to forget this Shelby

I have never been one to make lists. I don’t shop from a list at the grocery store. I have never made a list of what to pack before a trip and rarely create a to-do list to keep myself on-track with projects. With rare exception, until the past few years, I rarely forgot anything, so making a list seemed like a waste of time.

But when it comes to prayer, having a list has proven to be important. Prayer is harder than shopping for groceries, packing for a trip, or staying on-track with projects.

It is easy to forget to pray at all. It is easy to forget people I want to pray for. It is easy for my mind to wander off into something besides prayer while I am in the middle of praying.

The problem of a wandering mind is not new. When I was a young “preacher boy” of 17 or 18 years old, Mrs. Shelby, the mother of a friend, asked me to pray for her in regards to a specific issue. I was sincere when I agreed. A few months later she confronted me about not praying for her. I had to admit that I had not and asked how she knew. She told me that she asked different people to pray for different things. She knew I was not praying because the thing she had asked me to pray about was not changing. I realized at the time that nothing might have changed even if I had been praying, but I hadn’t and I was ashamed.

I need a prayer list to make sure I pray for the people I mean to pray for and to help me get back on track when my mind wanders.

I use software that allows me to create a prayer list that is available on my desktop computer, iPad, and iPhone. I arrived for a doctor’s appointment early today, so began praying through the list on my iPhone. The doctor was 30 minutes late and I was grateful that I got through my prayer list before we started.

My prayer list currently includes 15 topics. I just added Violence yesterday. No one in my life has committed or suffered violence lately, but I decided to pray about some of the violence that is making headline news. Yesterday I added the family of Terence Crutcher and Officer Betty Shelby. I also added the family of Keith Lamont Scott and Officer Brentley Vinson. I will pray for them 30 days unless something inspires me to keep praying. The kind of thing that would keep me praying is learning more about them as persons.

I am not going to forget Officer Shelby the way I forgot Mrs. Shelby when I was a teenager.