When I was in full-time Christian ministry, I went to lead a small church where a bright, intelligent young lady was the churchwarden (Anglican lay leader).
She was a teacher in her daily life and had been part of the church all her life. My predecessor told me he hoped she might step forward for some form of Christian ministry when her children grow older.
I was surprised when I advertised a Christian nurture course soon after arriving — and she signed up! I assumed she would have grown beyond a “Christian Basics” course in her faith journey.
Not only did she need the basic Christian teaching in that course, but she also confessed during one session that nobody had ever shown her how to pray.
I’ve met many faithful church-attending Christians who tell me nobody has ever shown them how to pray.
It’s like some church leaders think people learn by osmosis. Spoiler Alert: We don’t
The Bible teaches the value of prayer. For example, the apostle Paul reminds early Christians.
He tells the church in Thessalonica. “Pray continually,”
Then, he advises the church in Philippi. “Pray in every situation,”
And to the church in Colossae, he says, “Devote yourselves to prayer.”
From start to finish, the bible gives us a simple message: We should pray.
So why do so many of us find it so difficult to do it?
We know we should in theory— but we just find it hard to do in reality!
As individual Christians and churches, we suffer from “prayer anaemia.” Instead of being the lifeblood of our faith, prayer gets squeezed out or becomes an afterthought.
Here are four reasons we don’t pray.
1. We don’t know HOW
As I indicated in my opening story, many of us are in this situation right now. We just don’t know how to pray. We’ve never been taught or shown how to do it!
If we don’t know how, we need to be shown how.
There’s no shame in this. Even the disciples asked Jesus to show them: When Jesus had finished praying, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray” Luke 11.1.
If the disciples — the hand-picked group that Jesus chose — didn’t have a clue about prayer, perhaps we shouldn’t feel so bad.
So, if we don’t know HOW to pray, let’s own that truth. It’s the first small step to growing an effective and vital prayer life.
2. We think we are TOO BUSY
We soon feel overwhelmed by our many needs: family, church, city, and world…
We mean to carve out time for prayer. But the busyness of life squeezes it out. The writers of the Psalms often felt this overwhelm. Look at Psalm 69
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for God.
Prayer takes time. It flourishes in stillness, quietness, and serenity, which are increasingly difficult to find in our busy, hurried lives.
For some of us, prayer is something we will do if we’ve got nothing else going on.
The problem is there’s ALWAYS something else going on.
Prayer never happens by accident. We have to be intentional about it. If we don’t MAKE time in our busy lives, then it won’t happen…
3. We are not sure IF GOD HEARS
And we aren’t sure that even if He does — which He does — that it makes any difference.
Or perhaps He is too busy to hear our petty prayer requests.
Many of you will have seen the movie Bruce Almighty, where Jim Carrey plays ‘God’.
There’s a scene where he checks his inbox for all the prayer requests flooding in. No sooner does he clear the prayer request than a bunch more get added to the queue. There are so many requests that even God can’t keep up.
That’s not true, by the way…God is infinite. Not only that, He WANTS us to pray to Him.
He longs for his children to bring our heartfelt desires before Him. He is waiting for us to approach Him with our prayers.
Never think that God is too busy to listen to our prayers.
4. We think WE can handle it
This is the fallacy of self-reliance, which is the wrong path for Christians in the Bible.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do; he will show you the right way. (Proverbs 3.5–6.)
We all rely too much on our resources. Often, we don’t even think about turning to God in prayer.
Have you ever heard someone say, “All we can do now is pray?”
We often hear those words when someone is gravely ill, and there is nothing more that the doctors and medical staff can do for a person.
It’s like prayer is the last resort — when it should be the FIRST thing we do.
Even in Christian circles, we have lost the core value of relying on God rather than on ourselves.
All of Scripture tells us that life was designed to be lived, not in reliance on ourselves — but in total, joyful dependence on the God who made us and is always with us.
Which of these four areas do you struggle most with?
This is the first part of a new series. Each Monday, I’ll post a new article about building a more vibrant and thriving prayer life. Check back next Monday for another post.
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