Jesus told us, “Wherever your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  And the Catechism tells us that the distractions we face in prayer “reveal to us what we are attached to.” (CCC 2729) So what am I attached to these days? More often than not, it’s not loving God, but being productive.

I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire. I’m trying to find an agent for my novel. Trying to get the right paperwork to US Immigration for our adoption. Mixing a CD for this summer. Creating proposals for a new book. Figuring out taxes. Oh yeah, and then there’s that full time teaching job thing. And while I’m trying to accomplish these important tasks, there are these five little people who keep distracting me from my efforts and call me “dad”.

Sometimes I think I’m more of a human doing than a human being. I can meditate on my “to-do” list more than Sacred Scripture. I can judge the day, not by what God did in my life, but on how much I accomplished.

So this Lent I’ve been trying to do less. But I’ve realized that doing less doesn’t automatically mean I’m being more. I read a great book by Fr. Mike Scanlan called An Appointment with God that has encouraged me submit my to-do list before Him each morning, and that’s been pretty cool.

Like many of you, every day has different tasks to accomplish. But I’ve had a few common things on “repeat” on the list. I try to study Spanish every day. Different workout routines. Blogging. And prayer.

But over the weekend, I’ve decided to take prayer off my to-do list.

Why, because I’m not praying any more? No. Because I’ve realized that prayer isn’t a task to accomplish. It’s a loving communication with God. My problem has been that once I click the “finished box” next to “prayer” I think I’ve done my duty and I can move on to something else.

There are lots things I do each day that never end up on the to-do list. Do I have a check list for loving my wife? Encouraging my children? Being kind to friends? No, all these things come naturally because I love them.

A to-do list is there to remind me to do things I might not normally do and could forget if I didn’t write them down: article deadlines, papers to grade, do I run or bike today?

So I’m taking prayer off my to-do list in hope that I might pray more, might love more, and not treat my relationship with God as a task to be accomplished as much as a relationship to be lived.

This is my prayer for Lent: Lord, I don’t just want to do Your will. I want to be Yours.