Last week I started a series of posts about prayer, and prayer techniques. But before we prayer better, we had better start praying at all. It is so easy to talk about prayer, but actually praying is often hard. How often have you told someone that you’ll pray for them but never done it? I’m a pastor and yet I find myself doing that sometimes. It’s really sad, but true. Why do we talk about prayer so much and yet do it so little?
I have a thousand excuses about why I don’t spend more time with God in prayer. I am too busy. I talk to God more than I talk to my family already. I chat with God subconsciously so prayer is not needed. God knows my thoughts so I don’t have to direct them at God to pray. I am waiting to pray until I have the time to do it right. I don’t want to bore God with my minor issues. But in reality those are all excuses, not reasons.
The real reason I don’t pray more is that I am afraid. I am afraid that if I actually pray about what is going on in my life then I won’t have any excuses if I fail. You see, if I don’t pray, then I always can say “well I should have prayed about that more” as an excuse. But what does it mean if I pray about something and still fail?
And even more than that, I am afraid that if I do pray I won’t like the answers to my prayers if I do pray. It isn’t a conscious fear, but to some extent I keep trying to keep prayer as a reserve chute in case I am plummeting to my death, and am afraid that if I pull the chute too soon it won’t be there when I need it, if at all.
I know I’m not alone with some of these fears, and probably many more that I haven’t recognized in myself yet. The question, however, is what are we going to do about them? I can believe that prayer is important all I want, but if I don’t put that belief into practice its’ useless.
The problem, though, is that there are no magic solutions to make fear disappear. Only by trying out our fears and putting them to the test can we realize how foolish they are. We gain nothing by flinching away from God because we’re afraid. If you’re like me, right now you’re wishing there was another way. Perhaps you’re even certain that there is and have already decided to put off prayer until you have conquered your fears.
But there isn’t another way, which again scares me because these fears are my fears too. To conquer them we have to face them, prove them wrong, and that means we have to actually pray. Over the next several weeks I’ll be blogging about ways of making prayer easier, but in the end we still have to sit down and do it.
So right now, step away from the computer, go somewhere private, and pray. Not when you’re done with your email, go now. I will too.
I have a thousand excuses about why I don’t spend more time with God in prayer. I am too busy. I talk to God more than I talk to my family already. I chat with God subconsciously so prayer is not needed. God knows my thoughts so I don’t have to direct them at God to pray. I am waiting to pray until I have the time to do it right. I don’t want to bore God with my minor issues. But in reality those are all excuses, not reasons.
The real reason I don’t pray more is that I am afraid. I am afraid that if I actually pray about what is going on in my life then I won’t have any excuses if I fail. You see, if I don’t pray, then I always can say “well I should have prayed about that more” as an excuse. But what does it mean if I pray about something and still fail?
And even more than that, I am afraid that if I do pray I won’t like the answers to my prayers if I do pray. It isn’t a conscious fear, but to some extent I keep trying to keep prayer as a reserve chute in case I am plummeting to my death, and am afraid that if I pull the chute too soon it won’t be there when I need it, if at all.
I know I’m not alone with some of these fears, and probably many more that I haven’t recognized in myself yet. The question, however, is what are we going to do about them? I can believe that prayer is important all I want, but if I don’t put that belief into practice its’ useless.
The problem, though, is that there are no magic solutions to make fear disappear. Only by trying out our fears and putting them to the test can we realize how foolish they are. We gain nothing by flinching away from God because we’re afraid. If you’re like me, right now you’re wishing there was another way. Perhaps you’re even certain that there is and have already decided to put off prayer until you have conquered your fears.
But there isn’t another way, which again scares me because these fears are my fears too. To conquer them we have to face them, prove them wrong, and that means we have to actually pray. Over the next several weeks I’ll be blogging about ways of making prayer easier, but in the end we still have to sit down and do it.
So right now, step away from the computer, go somewhere private, and pray. Not when you’re done with your email, go now. I will too.
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