The Prayers I Almost Didn’t Pray Because They Felt Too Small

I was standing in a hardware store holding two nearly identical boxes of screws when I caught myself doing something ridiculous. I had been there longer than I care to admit, reading tiny numbers on the labels, putting one box back, picking up another, trying to remember the thickness of a piece of wood sitting twenty minutes away at home. Somewhere in the middle of this deeply unimportant crisis, I quietly said, “God, help me pick the right ones.”

Then I felt silly.

Not convicted. Silly.

There are wars happening. Families are burying people they love. Somebody is sitting beside a hospital bed right now listening to machines beep. People are praying about marriages that are barely holding together, children who have walked away from God, rent they cannot cover, test results they’re frightened to open. And here I was asking God about screws.

I bought the wrong ones, by the way.

That detail still makes me laugh because it ruins the story if I’m trying to turn it into a neat testimony about praying about small things. I prayed. I chose. I drove home. Wrong size.

I went back the next day.

I’m Not Sure Where I Learned To Rank My Prayers

Nobody ever sat me down and said, “Daniel, God handles cancer, grief, financial disaster, and major life decisions. Please handle everything below that level yourself.”

Still, somewhere along the way I developed categories.

There were serious prayers. Those deserved time, Scripture, concentration, maybe getting somewhere quiet.

Then there was everything else.

A difficult conversation before lunch. Finding something I’d misplaced. Asking God to help me keep my mouth shut when I was irritated. Wondering whether I should call someone now or leave them alone for a few days. The little decisions that don’t seem spiritual until you make one badly and spend the next three hours wishing you hadn’t.

I don’t remember deciding those things were beneath God’s attention.

I just started acting like they were.

Years ago, I had a conversation with someone who was going through a genuinely difficult season. There were financial problems involved, family tension, and another issue I won’t share because it isn’t my story to tell. Before we finished talking, he mentioned almost as an afterthought that he’d lost an important document and had torn apart half the house looking for it.

I remember immediately wanting to pray about the big problems.

The document? That seemed almost embarrassing beside everything else.

He prayed about it anyway.

Not dramatically. He simply asked God to help him find the thing because he was exhausted and didn’t know where else to look.

I don't remember whether he found it that afternoon or the following morning. I do remember being bothered by my own reaction. Why had I silently decided which parts of his life God would consider worthy of discussion?

That question stuck around longer than I expected.

Jesus Talked About Birds, Hair, Bread, And Lost Coins

There are enormous themes in Scripture. Redemption. Judgment. Eternity. The Cross. The Resurrection. Kingdoms rising and falling.

Then Jesus starts talking about sparrows.

That catches my attention.

In Matthew 10, Jesus tells His disciples that not one sparrow falls to the ground without the Father knowing, and then He talks about the hairs of their heads being numbered. I've read that passage plenty of times, but I used to race toward the obvious point about God's care without lingering over how strangely specific Jesus was being.

Hair.

Not your career.

Not your calling.

Hair.

I’m not suggesting we need to manufacture some doctrine where every minor inconvenience becomes a spiritual emergency. I’ve met people who can make choosing a sandwich sound like they’re waiting for a prophetic word, and that can get strange pretty quickly.

Still, I wonder whether I’ve gone too far in the opposite direction.

There are parts of my life I simply don’t mention to God because I’ve decided I can manage them.

And perhaps that sentence bothers me more than the hardware-store story.

One Of My Smallest Prayers Was About My Attitude

I had to attend something once that I didn't particularly want to attend.

Nothing was wrong with the event. Nobody had offended me. I was tired, already mentally occupied with other things, and I had one of those moods where even putting on decent clothes felt like an unreasonable request.

I knew I was being childish.

That didn't immediately stop me from being childish.

While getting ready, I prayed something along the lines of, “Father, please help me not bring this attitude into the room.”

That was basically it.

I didn't ask God to make the evening extraordinary. I didn't need a sign. I needed help not being unpleasant.

There’s a kind of honesty in a prayer like that which I’ve grown to appreciate.

Sometimes the spiritual problem isn't Satan, persecution, a closed door, or some enormous battle.

Sometimes I’m just cranky.

Calling every bad mood “spiritual warfare” can become a convenient way of avoiding responsibility for the fact that I went to bed too late, overloaded my schedule, said yes when I should’ve said no, and now everybody around me is getting the consequences.

I went to the event.

My attitude improved.

Nothing particularly memorable happened, which is probably why I remember the prayer more than the evening itself.

I’ve Prayed Before Sending Messages

This one happens more often than I’d like.

There’s a particular feeling you get when you've typed a message while irritated and your thumb is sitting there near the send button. The words are technically accurate. You can defend every sentence.

That's usually when I’m most dangerous.

I've learned to pray before responding, especially when part of me desperately wants to make sure the other person understands exactly how wrong they are.

Not every time. I wish I could say every time.

A simple prayer like, “God, should I send this?” has saved me from myself more than once.

It has also occasionally resulted in me deleting ten minutes of very impressive argumentation.

I hate deleting impressive argumentation.

There's no applause for the message you didn't send. Nobody knows you exercised restraint. You don't get to explain how clever the third paragraph was.

Delete.

Put the phone down.

Go do something else.

That might be one of the least glamorous forms of daily prayer I know.

Maybe Prayer Was Never Supposed To Be Reserved For Emergencies

Paul writes in Philippians 4:6, “in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

Every thing is annoyingly broad.

I would almost prefer a list.

Major medical decisions, yes. Career changes, yes. Marriage difficulties, absolutely. Financial problems, definitely.

Paul doesn't give us that.

Every thing.

Brother Lawrence, the seventeenth-century Christian known for what later became The Practice of the Presence of God, became famous for seeking God during ordinary work. He worked in a monastery kitchen for part of his life, although I hesitate to even mention the kitchen because Christians have squeezed enough illustrations out of kitchens to last several lifetimes.

What interests me isn't the room.

It's the idea that ordinary work didn't have to be spiritually empty.

I think I still divide my life more than I realize.

Prayer time.

Work time.

Family time.

Errand time.

Problem-solving time.

God gets the first category, and then I wonder why I sometimes go several hours without consciously acknowledging Him.

There Are Small Prayers I Still Forget To Pray

A few come to mind.

Help me listen instead of preparing my answer.
Show me if I’m making this more complicated than it is.
Help me spend wisely today.
Give me patience with this person because mine is running low.
Help me notice who needs encouragement.
Keep me from saying something merely because I want credit for knowing it.
Show me what I’m ignoring.

That last one is uncomfortable.

I’ve prayed it and remembered something I was hoping to continue forgetting.

An apology.

A promise I hadn't kept.

A task I'd postponed because nobody was checking.

Not exactly the answers people put on inspirational posters.

I Watched A Man Pray Over A Broken Machine Once

This happened years ago and I still remember it.

A piece of equipment had stopped working and several people were standing around it offering theories. Somebody had already tried the obvious fix. Another person was looking for a tool.

One man quietly put his hand on the machine and prayed.

I nearly laughed.

Not at him exactly. More at the situation.

He asked God for wisdom to figure out what was wrong.

Then everybody went back to work.

I can't give you a miraculous ending because I don't remember one. Somebody eventually figured out the problem. Whether the prayer directly led to that solution, I have absolutely no idea.

What stayed with me was how natural it seemed to him.

God wasn't somebody he summoned when human ability ran out.

God was already there while they were troubleshooting.

That distinction has bothered me, in a good way, for years.

I Still Catch Myself Saying, “I Can Handle This”

Of course I can handle some things.

God gave us brains.

If my shoelace comes untied, I don't need to begin a prayer meeting.

Wisdom isn't helplessness.

Still, there’s something underneath my constant instinct to handle things myself that I don't entirely trust. Independence can wear respectable clothes. It can look like competence, efficiency, maturity, being responsible.

Sometimes it is those things.

Sometimes I simply don't want to depend on anybody.

Even God.

That's harder for me to write because it isn't nearly as charming as praying about screws.

Your Small Prayers Probably Reveal Something

Think about what you talked to God about yesterday.

Not what you believe about prayer.

What you actually prayed.

There may be a difference.

There is for me.

If my prayers only contain emergencies and major decisions, perhaps I'm treating God more like an adviser than a Father. I don't call someone a close friend if I only contact him when my life catches fire.

Although even that comparison isn't quite right because God isn't simply interested in receiving more information from us. He already knows.

Prayer changes the way I move through ordinary life.

Or it can.

Some days I remember that.

Other days I get halfway through the afternoon and realize I've been operating entirely inside my own head since breakfast.

I don't panic about that anymore.

I just start talking again.

Yesterday I prayed about something embarrassingly ordinary. I needed to remember to deal with a small responsibility I'd postponed twice, and I knew there was a decent chance I'd get distracted again.

“Father, please remind me.”

A few hours later, I remembered.

Was that God?

Probably.

Could my brain simply have remembered?

Sure.

I'm less interested in sorting those possibilities into airtight categories than I used to be.

I thanked God and handled it.

There are much larger things I'm praying about right now, things that matter deeply to me and haven't been resolved. I don't understand those nearly as well.

The little prayers haven't taught me why the larger ones sometimes wait.

They've mostly taught me that I don't have to disappear from conversation with God while I'm waiting.

And I've got a few things to pray about today that nobody else would consider important.

God already knows what they are.

I think I'll mention them anyway.