“Dear Lord, please grant me the grace today to love you with all of my heart, with all of my soul, with all of my mind and with all of my strength.   And give me the grace to love my neighbor as myself…so that I can love what you love”

I then follow that with an “Our Father”, a “Hail Mary” and a “Glory Be”.    I have been doing this for a little while and I am sensing a shift in my heart.  

Where the infection comes in – is as I am praying the “Our Father” my mind begins to shift and I start thinking about how I can share this idea with others on Facebook, Instagram, etc.   By the tail end of “Forgive us our trespasses” I realize what my mind has been doing.  And I begin to repent of these thoughts.  

I recognize that I have  a problem. I am infected with the way the world thinks.  We don’t just live anymore.  We “share” all the time.  I don’t just pray for the sake of praying.   Now I pray and want to “share” that with everyone to “encourage” others to do the same.  

Why do I do this?  Why not just pray and keep it between the Lord and myself?  (And here is the irony – I am writing about this and “sharing” again).  I find myself often fluctuating between abandoning “digital life” all together and going the way of the Amish….or just accepting this as the culture I now live within.

One of those 1st steps has something to do with “recognizing I have a problem that I am powerless to overcome”.   Perhaps for now, it is enough to recognize the problem…and continue to pray that prayer so that eventually….you may never hear about struggles like this.