{"id":1720,"date":"2020-03-18T20:33:57","date_gmt":"2020-03-18T20:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/?p=1720"},"modified":"2020-03-18T20:33:57","modified_gmt":"2020-03-18T20:33:57","slug":"how-to-pray-when-praying-is-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/2020\/03\/18\/how-to-pray-when-praying-is-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Pray When Praying Is Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s blog is written by Jarrett Stevens, author of Praying Through: Overcoming the Obstacles That Keep Us from God<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been a pastor for over twenty years, and I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve heard the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t know how to pray.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t grow up doing this kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found it hard to pray after this loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m too angry at God to pray right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

I get it. I\u2019ve had my fair share of frustration and struggle with prayer. Years ago, my father-in-law died suddenly and unexpectedly while running a race with his son. None of us saw it coming, and none of us saw how we would make it without him. Many months passed before I felt like talking to God again. When my workload is particularly intense (precisely the time I need to be praying the most), I tell myself that the last thing I have time for is prayer. When we\u2019re running late in the morning, for example. Or when I\u2019m exhausted at the end of the day.<\/p>\n

I get it. Praying seems hard.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

For many people, learning to pray feels like learning a second language: You\u2019re never quite sure if you\u2019re using the right words the right way. You can feel like a tourist lost in a foreign land where everyone else knows something that you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Or maybe prayer seems hard because you feel like you\u2019re not praying enough. Ask anyone who prays how often they pray, and they will most likely tell you, in somewhat deflated and potentially shame-laden tones, \u201cNot enough. I should be praying more.\u201d Should is the one of the unhealthiest, most unhelpful words in the English language. It\u2019s filled with guilt and obligation, especially when it comes to prayer. Like sleeping, flossing, exercising, and eating healthily, praying is another thing that we know is good for us but just don\u2019t do enough. As if there were a prayer quota that we never quite seem to reach.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Looking to just get started with prayer? See this helpful blog:\u00a0How to Pray, What to Pray and Getting Results<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Then there are times when prayer becomes hard because you just don\u2019t want to do it. You\u2019re either too tired or too busy. Or you don\u2019t feel like bothering God with your silly, little prayers. Over time, praying can seem rote and repetitive, stagnant and stale. You may sense that you\u2019ve run out of words to say.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

And for some people, a great loss, the presence of pain, or an unwelcome season of grief makes praying feel like stumbling and fumbling around in the dark. Maybe you\u2019ve experienced the flame of prayer that once burned bright but has now dwindled to a flicker at best, and you just can\u2019t see a way through this darkness.<\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019ve found that the sweet and simple prayers of a childhood faith are no longer big enough for the complexities of adult life. Formulas for prayer fall short and eventually fail us. Sometimes all the words in the world cannot seem to connect the dots from our heart to God\u2019s. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a famous twentieth-century Welsh minister, acknowledged the perplexity of prayer by calling it \u201cthe supreme expression of our faith in God\u201d[i] and saying that \u201cEverything we do in the Christian life is easier than prayer.\u201d[ii]<\/p>\n

Praying is hard. Or at least that\u2019s what we tell ourselves. I want to help you see that while prayer is mysterious, it is not as hard as you think. In fact, without being in any way even slightly patronizing, praying is honestly quite simple.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The problem for many of us is that we have forgotten how simple prayer really is. So simple that a child can do it. It\u2019s just talking with God. That\u2019s it. If you can talk to a friend, you can pray. God didn\u2019t make prayer hard\u2014we did.<\/p>\n

Our kids have been praying since they could talk. Not because we\u2019re amazing parents, but because to them, it\u2019s simple. They just talk to God. They prayer without pretense. They use their own words to let God know how they are feeling and what they want. They pray for their friends, they pray for their schoolwork, they pray for each other, they even pray for their stuffed animals. Chiggers the Lion and Roary the Bear have been covered in prayer.<\/p>\n

The power of prayer is in its simplicity. And yet, so often, we find ourselves feeling like Jesus\u2019 disciples when they asked Jesus, \u201cLord, teach us [how] to pray\u201d (Luke 11:1). And if you can posture yourself like those first followers of Jesus and ask God to make prayer your way of life, it will be helpful, liberating, and life-giving to you. Because we need prayer more than we know.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

\"Front<\/a><\/p>\n

Blog excerpted from\u00a0Praying Through: Overcoming the Obstacles That Keep Us from God<\/a><\/em>, by Jarrett Stevens.<\/p>\n

Jarrett Stevens is a pastor, writer and speaker. He is a lead pastor, with his wife Jeanne, at Soul City Church in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

[i] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Assurance of Our Salvation: Exploring the Depth of Jesus\u2019 Prayer for His Own, Studies in John 17 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000), chap. 2.<\/p>\n

[ii] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, one-volume ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), 322.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s blog is written by Jarrett Stevens, author of Praying Through: Overcoming the Obstacles That Keep Us from God. \u2014 I\u2019ve been a pastor for over twenty years, and I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve heard the following: \u201cI just don\u2019t know how to pray.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t grow up doing this kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[11,193,7,54,157,149],"tags":[56,55,31,297],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1720"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1728,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1720\/revisions\/1728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tyndale.com\/unfoldingfaithblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}