Prayerful Beginnings?

I HATE beginnings. The beginnings of movies usually take too long to reveal the plot.  As an introvert I would rather make a trip to the dentist than to face the beginning of something--like a new school semester, a new job, a new situation, etc... UGH!!! Even the thought of it causes a small amount of anxiety and fear of the unknown.

However, IF Heraclitus is right and everything in the universe is fluid (that is to say it lacks permanency) [he states "one never steps in the same stream twice"] then everything all the time is new (nothing is permanent) and each thing we do is somehow a beginning even though it may appear that we have done this very same thing over and over again.

I have been teaching on prayer lately (in fact, I am convinced that I teach and read about prayer because of the guilt that I have about not actually praying enough). I have found a LOT of helpful information in a number of resources...but every time I close my eyes and try to focus it seems like that awkward first time again.  My mind wonders, guilt ensues, I quickly think that prayer is descending into a diatribe at best and a soliloquy at worst!! As J.I. Packer puts it..."it has become a duty and not a delight" (see the work here: Packer, J.I. and Nystrom, Carolyn "Praying: Finding our Way Through Duty to Delight).

I never seem to get beyond the fumbling to the "good part."  Theologically I am there.  I believe, know and understand that God loves me, wants what's best for me, and wants me to communicate with Him.  I just sense silence and not communication. I still pray, badly, but I seem to spend a LOT more time lately NOT asking things--perhaps I lack the faith to ask because of the silence I have experienced.  If I were a deterministic Calvinist I would simply chalk it up to God's determinism and let it go...but I am not.  Like Rich Mullins, I keep thinking that He is playing "Hard to Get."

But then I happened upon this Thomas Merton quote:

We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. But let us be convinced of the fact 

that we will NEVER be anything but beginners, all our life!

Interesting...as much as I HATE beginnings I wonder if it is worth starting over with a new perspective?  Paul sheds light on a similar problem in Romans chapters 9-11 where he finally figures out that the majority of the human problem is a problem in perspective...we cannot see what God sees, nor can we know what God knows-- "His ways are not our way." Instead of praying my perspective I should seek a new perspective from the One who sees all!!

Each beginning will always be difficult...but I like that I never face it alone.

I believe help my unbelief.