The Strife of learning SLOWLY

As I walked around my house this morning, sweeping the floor and thinking about what I wanted to write today, I am increasingly fighting the desire to move away from this conviction of prayer. Taylor, move on, there's nothing new to say on this matter, you're floundering...clearly if you just started talking and thinking about this other topic, or just share what you're learning as you prepare to teach in March...and so my thoughts go. But, by God's grace, I also hear a still, small voice saying in the back of my mind "Stay." One simple word, that my steamroller brain wants to blow right past and call in the aftermath a meaningless swirl of dust and not the voice of the Almighty. I am learning now that just as a spiritual discipline becomes difficult, my human tendency is to charge away on some new valiant quest, of which I know there is an inexhaustible list (because I am so far from perfect). But I see that what makes a discipline called a discipline is that when the challenge of it requires you to dig in and continue in spite of the temptation to give up and move on to some more interesting or seemingly relevant task, you must resist and stay the course, crying out for more of God's grace and for your heart to wait on the Lord. To make a simple analogy, let's go back to my sweeping the floor. On many days I manage to get the kitchen swept alright, but as my broom moves closer to the living room and I think about all the furniture I have to move and how I also must walk all the way back to the laundry room to get the dustpan and how if I just look to my left I realize that there are a few dishes that still haven't been put in the dishwasher...and about half the time I lean my broom carefully over the little pile of crumbs and dust that I have swept and walk over to the sink to get these dishes washed; and sometimes at about 5:30 when my husband gets home from work, he makes his way to the couch, stepping across this same broom that has remained all day guarding the small pile of dust (which by neglect of being an unfinished task, the pile of dust is that much smaller), and then I see the broom for the first time all day, and I just can't believe I never got that done.
So now, my spiritual heart is looking around for some dishes! I need to perservere even more. I read a quote the other day that I have not been able to find again, but the gist of it went something like this: The more spiritual the task, the harder it is to cultivate this task. The simpler it may seem, the more difficult to master. I will continue to look for the actual quote, because I feel I have butchered it savagely just now, but my little son is crying for my attention in the other room and that will just have to do for now. :-)