Dashboard Jesus

As I was driving to work this morning, I reminded myself of a small-group lesson that I put together a couple of months ago. I was sitting in my car praying and driving, as I do every morning on my way to work. Somewhere along the way, I realized that part of the time I was praying, and the other part my mind was drifting on to other things. If you were to be honest, I bet you would see that, like me, you too occasionally find yourself not grasping the concept of who God is when you are praying. Instead, our intentions are half hearted and our focus is else where. I'm guilty of getting into a prayer routine, and instead of praying because I need to talk to God, I'm praying because it's time to talk to God. To help break this habit, I have found a good way to get outside of this routine mindset. Put yourself in the situation that you are physically before the Lord. Make yourself think that God is physically standing right in front of you or sitting beside you, and you are actually talking to Him at that moment. Truth is, He really is right there beside you and you really are talking to Him at that moment. That's part of our faith; believing that God is physically there, even though we can't see Him. Personally, this is why I let my mind drift sometimes or my praises are few because I can't physically see Him. But if you were to put yourself in that situation, how would your tone change? How would your requests and your praises change? What would you actually say? It's like MercyMe's song I Can Only Imagine; what would you do in the presence of God? I am extremely guilty of not getting in the right frame of mind when I'm talking to God. To even take this a step further, how would we act if we were to get in the mindset that God is right there beside us even when we aren't praying? How would our choices and decisions differ from when we aren't thinking that God is following us around? This is a scary thought for me. I have made so many less than heroic decisions in my life that I'm ashamed to get into this mindset. It's hard for me to grasp the concept of grace when I look back on all of my intentional sins. Wouldn't it all be easier if we could just actually see Him?