“One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”
—Luke 6:12

I have the attention span of a toddler.

Rarely can I offer a focused prayer beyond 10 minutes at a time before I either lapse into a deep sleep or become accosted by the day’s intrusive thoughts.

Though we all may agree the highest and best use of our time is that spent in prayer to our Creator, the fight to maintain it always ends in frustration.

And then I read that Jesus prayed all night.

I can barely imagine it.

But perhaps the lesson isn’t that I should feel guilty because I can’t pray like Jesus.

Perhaps it’s that even Jesus, with all that awaited Him, considered uninterrupted time with His Father worth seeking.

I keep trying.

Ten minutes at a time if that’s what I have. A sentence when that’s all I can manage. A whispered “help me” when words fail altogether.

Because prayer is no test of endurance.

It is relationship.

And I suspect God would rather have His distracted child keep coming back to Him than have him stay away because he thinks he isn’t very good at praying.

So I keep coming back.

Because that, too, is prayer.