“I Forgot What I Was Going to Say”
What to pray when we lose our train of thought.
Some years ago I was talking with my sister.
She said, “Oh, I have something to say about that!… Oh, no, it’s gone. That always happens.”
It was an interaction that we’d had often enough. Sometimes I would forget what I was thinking about. Sometimes she would.
But suddenly I realized that her statement of forgetfulness was something like a curse, or a declaration of doubt, or a statement of a lack of faith.
The underlying assumption was that the Holy Spirit could bring something powerful and helpful to mind, but only once. If we failed to capture that fleeting idea, no second chance remained to us.
How disempowering! How dishonoring to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives!
So we prayed to break that off in the name of Jesus.
Since then, whenever we forget something, we say:
Lord, if you brought it to mind once, you can bring it to mind again. Please bless our minds.
And he does!
And here is a longer prayer, for any sense like, “That [negative thing] always happens to me!”
In the name of Jesus, and by the power of his cross and his authority, I cut us free from any lie that says God brings to mind thoughts and prayers only once, and he is not able to bring them to mind again. I cut us free from the idea that we have only one chance, and no more.
To any spirit of inner vow, or curse, or lying declaration, or any other lying tongue, I bind you and I send you to Jesus, for him to deal with you as he will.
And in their place, I bless us with the truth. I bless us with a knowledge of God, of his great love for us, of his arm that’s not too short to save. I bless us with a sense of hope, and with the desire to lean into all the promises of God.
I ask, Lord, for a new story for your people, that from now on, if we temporarily forget something from you, you bless us again with a new memory of it. Thank you that you are so good, that you delight to reach out to us, again and again. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Let us bless God,
Amy Joy
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