Becoming "mighty in prayer": Update

Now that we have completed the first quarter of the year, it seemed reasonable to track progress; that's something people do for resolutions, right?

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/01/mighty-in-prayer.html

I am not being that scientific about my goal. I have no specific benchmarks and tracking set up. Frankly, I think it could be hard to quantify. There has still been progress.

For the issue of being less tired and more organized... I am still working on that. It is a hard area for me, which made it both more likely as an immediate awareness and harder to overcome.

However, as I have been working on it, there were two other things that came to mind, and there has been more progress there.

One was that I need to bring my sisters along more. This is not exclusive to prayer, but when I am making plans and trying to improve things sometimes I keep those to myself. If it is something that would be good for them too, and something where working together makes it easier for me, then we should work together.

Having started in that direction made the second part easier.

Many years ago we started praying together for various people. 

It started with the hopes that various members of the singles ward would get married. I had the idea that maybe if we cleared out some other people we would have our own chance. 

It did not hurt to revisit that now, when it seems so naive. Granted, we did pray for people who did get married and are still married, but we have also seen a lot of bad marriages, even with meeting in church and being married in the temple. (Again, not any of the people we prayed for, but we know them.)

I am just saying that we have seen a lot and understand a lot more fifteen years later. We were still praying for various people for many issues not related to marriage, and it was starting to feel like too many people, and not well-thought out enough.

For example, there was one person that we had been praying for when he was job-hunting. We did submit him for different jobs, but there hasn't been anything for quite a while now. He is still in his old job. That is probably okay, and probably not something we can affect.

Other people may still always need blessings -- that's just life -- but the issues that first got them added in have subsided.

Clearly the issue was that things had gotten too habitual. That was hard to change; stopping praying for someone feels kind of mean. Plus, so many times we would just be in the prayer without talking about it that much, and then there is this long list that feels rote, even if the caring is sincere.

So we talked about it.

Some people are still in there. One remained for a long time while we were hearing nothing from her, but it felt important. When communication was re-established it was confirmed that friendship and sense of being cared for mattered. 

There are some we know we shouldn't let go, and we won't. 

Otherwise, now it feels lighter, and like there is more room for other people to come in. The amount of people we are praying for doesn't overwhelm the things that we are thankful for. 

I believe that will make it easier to feel influences.

That will be part of these prayers being more powerful because of what we "hear" and act on.

It will take work, but I expect that to continue to improve.