Confession. I have a hard time with prayer.
I know many of us Christians say that. Struggling with prayer isn’t exactly uncommon. Although many don’t, and I genuinely believe there are Christians who don’t struggle with it the way I do. I look at so many stalwart, solid Christians in my life and think… yeah, those are the ones who don’t struggle. Their life, their breath, seems filled with prayer. I’d be willing to bet they have dedicated times in the morning—7 a.m., maybe 6 a.m.—set aside just for prayer, just for communion with God.
I had a friend who, at one point in her life, was able to dedicate an entire hour to prayer.
Every day.
Yeah, that’s not me. If I’m being honest with myself, that has never been me. But especially not now.
There’s definitely an element of spiritual discipline that is a must within the Christian life. To me, though, that level of discipline feels about the equivalent of running a marathon… every day.
I’m just not there.
I’m lucky if I get a mile out of my prayers.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to make light of any of it. I think that level of spiritual discipline is something to be commended—even something to aspire to. It’s something the pillars of our faith understood, or at least were dedicated to pursuing, and I believe we can look to them as examples.
Nor should we use our own inabilities or lack of desire as an excuse.
Sometimes, though, we can put pillars and prime examples of faith on such high pedestals that they begin to feel far and distant. In our minds, we’ll never get there, so we might as well give up before we even try.
I don’t think I’m at either of those places right now.
Honestly and truly…
I’m just trying to figure it out.
I Wasn’t Always Struggling With Prayer
I wasn’t always this way.
I remember different periods in my younger life when I dedicated many times throughout the day to prayer. I even remember volunteering to pray among our church choir group once and later hearing one of the adults in the room refer to me as a prayer warrior. It filled me with a sense of respectful pride, of confidence. I loved prayer. I lived it. And I was unafraid to let everyone see it in my life.
Even as I got older and struggled—whether it was in class, in my studies, or simply with my own lack of confidence—God was the first One I would turn to. I even remember a time when I was severely stricken with a case of the guilts. I’ve shared before that I’m not an early riser. Never have been. I’ve struggled with this my whole life. I really do enjoy being up that early… just apparently not enough to force myself out of sleep. So when I heard a sermon about how Christ should be our priority every morning, how we should start our day early in His Word, I was incredibly convicted.
I couldn’t even bring myself to wake up early for God?
How incredibly ungrateful was I?
I was a horrible Christian.
How could I even consider myself a true believer?
I was stricken with grief over that for days, maybe weeks. And yet, even then, I turned to God. In those moments, I would pour my heart out to Him. I would confess my inabilities and inadequacies and pray for strength. I was heartsick over it.
Eventually, I realized I was setting myself up for failure and allowing that failure to paralyze every other area of my faith. I was able to work through some of that.
But the point is, I still turned to God—even in the midst of my own perceived failures.
When Did I Start Struggling With Prayer?
So how did I get here?
How did I go from having no doubt in my mind, from having a passion for prayer—a need for it—to this? I’m not entirely sure.
At some point in my adult life, I started struggling with prayer. This was well before the affair. Probably a good five to ten years before, if I’m being honest.
I don’t think it was any one moment.
It never is, is it?
I think it was more likely a culmination of different moments, different thoughts, different disappointments. Pretty soon, I had this nagging idea in the back of my mind:
God is who He is. He’s going to do what He wants to do anyway.
I never would have admitted it at the time, but somewhere deep down, I had begun to believe prayer was pointless. In hindsight, I can see how that one attitude, that one thought, could have been the beginning of a cascading spiral of events.
But we won’t go there right now…
When Hurt Made Prayer Even Harder
You can probably imagine what that did to my prayer life after the affair. It was pretty much nonexistent. Even after we struggled through the healing, even after my husband led us in prayer consistently before bed every single night for months at a time…
Even then, I couldn’t.
I would be obedient. I would participate. But it was never a part of me. Not like it used to be.
And now, I know I need more. I have to have more.
I’m not sure yet how to bridge this chasm that’s here, but I am determined that I will.
Learning to Pray Again
So I’m starting a new study on prayer from The Daily Grace Co. In fact, I’ve already started. And already, I’ve been humbled.
On the very first day, the study reminded me of something incredibly simple:
Prayer was modeled in the life of Christ.
Throughout His life, Jesus prayed. He withdrew to pray. He prayed before decisions. He prayed in anguish. He prayed for others. He prayed in His final hours.
And that stopped me.
Because if Christ Himself lived a life marked by prayer, the One who is God and knows God, then maybe the question I need to wrestle with isn’t whether prayer changes God’s mind or whether I even understand how it all works.
Maybe I need to start much simpler.
Jesus prayed.
So I will too.
I don’t know what that’s going to look like yet. Maybe I’m not ready for the marathon. Maybe right now, I just need to run the mile. But I’m starting.
