What do you do while you drive?
Sing loudly?
Get agitated by other drivers?
Listen to drivel (and useful things) on the radio or podcasts?
Pray?
Recently I’ve been encouraged to be part of a movement to memorise chunks of the Bible (more about this later). Someone suggested learning it as they drive. I struggle to do that well (and the Gards have interesting thoughts on verses on the dashboard too), but I do find the hours per week I do of driving, extremely useful time to pray.
Driving has the beauty of being phonefree (largely) apart from taking phonecalls through the speaker system, so there’s no messages to check and no scrolling newsfeeds.
So how can we use our travel time well as we commute or travel longer distances?
Well it’s one of my favourite undistracted times to pray. Get too many prayer updates into your inbox to read and pray through immediately? Well, I like to be honest with those I support, and yet still to pray. If they’re long I print them, but if not, I take five minutes to recap them before I start my journey and then have a few hours praying for them and whoever else is on my mind.
It’s surprising how unhurried the journey becomes, how hard it is to get annoyed with other drivers, and how refreshing car journeys can then be. Sometimes things I see out the window (junctions of a road that lead to churches, beauty and brokenness of the world, evocative things in my personal experience etc) stir a heart to pray for things. Not that it always works. Sometimes distractions and thought patterns still consume. Other times, I haven’t had time to read through updates again, and I’m just hoping I can remember what to pray for various folk.
So why not give it a go?
Do you make a regular journey by car, public transport or foot? Why not start each journey this week with 5 minutes of thankful prayer. Perhaps next week you can add things that are on your heart, and week the after some requests of those mission partners you prayerfully support across the world. And if you’re short of those, you’re welcome to drop me a line and I can suggest a few that will excite you with what God is doing in this world!
al-jabr 