When You Struggle To Pray

Do you ever struggle with what to pray for?

Do you ever sit down and think “I should pray…” but then have 1,000 other things running through your mind?

Do you ever wonder how the monks do it? Maybe beside that point, you wonder what it would be like to live in that much solitude?

While in college, (I should state that I did go to a Bible college), for one of our classes, we took a field trip to a monastery. I remember vividly, waking up at 4:00am to do my devotions and pray. I sat there in my bedroom, kneeling beside my bed, reading scripture, doctrine, praying, all in the wee hours of the morning. This didn’t only happen once, but a few times throughout the day.

Let’s be real. In college, your goal in life isn’t to get up early in the morning or in the middle of the night. I remember this being a challenge, but oh little did I know what was to come in life! Insert having a child. Not saying I am living the life of a monk, but little did I know how many times I would be waken up in the middle of the night by a cry, a slap on my forehead, or a sweet little voice saying, “Mommy?”

There were also times in life when praying was just hard. I remember sitting in a recliner in Mazy’s room, trying to rock her back to sleep, listening to a cd filled with Christian lullabies. Trying to remember that this is but a season, but falling asleep as I spent time with my Jesus. You see, praying at the time, often meant sharing my heart, but also sitting in the presence of Jesus. I shared my struggle to stay awake while praying in the wee hours of the night/morning to a group I was a part of, but later received a phone call that shamed me into falling asleep while praying. Being told it was a sin and that the devil got ahold of my life, was sheer humiliating and deflating. I thought wow, am I really that bad of a Christian? That I can’t even stay awake to spend time with my Father? I was devastated.

But then. BUT THEN. I was reminded by my pastor that indeed, it was the perfect setting to be spent with Jesus. Falling asleep in the arms of HIM. My child in mine, and I in His.

Fast forward 6 years. I sometimes still struggle to pray. I don’t struggle in the sense of spending time in the presence of my Savior, but in knowing what to say. As someone who walks with an incurable disease this side of heaven, do I pray daily for healing? Do I pray for it all to go away? I honestly don’t. Because what if, just what IF, God would get greater glory through my heart failure, than me being healed of it? These are the questions I wrestle with.

In November 2017, I was lying in an ICU bed, awaiting another open heart surgery, but was too weak to have one at the time. One evening, a nurse practitioner come into my quiet room, exclaiming that my organs were failing and if they didn’t show improvement in 4 hours, they would have to ventilate me, open me up, insert a bypass pump in my heart, until I was healthy enough for another surgery. Yikes. Those next 4 hours, Dan and I spent time in prayer, in tears, in song, praying for not necessarily healing, but for God’s glory to be done. If that meant me not making it, then that was His will and we were ready to surrender. A moment when healing wasn’t our ultimate goal, but His glory.

That brings me back to today. I can’t say I live with that much faith every day. I wish I did! I do pray that God would provide for my daily needs, as it says in the Lord’s prayer. But I’ll admit, I would not be who I am, if he took away my heart failure. I wouldn’t understand His power. His glory. His presence. His sovereignty, in the way I do because of it. And this is where I struggle. What do I pray?

I so easily complicate prayer. I often think I have to go back to that moment in college when I got up at 4am to pray and do my devotions. I know that for me, that’s not feasible. Rest and sleep are huge components in heart failure and adequate sleep is needed. I get up and do my devotions, in hoping Mazy doesn’t wake up early, and if she does, I know God gives me the grace in knowing I tried and try and finish at night. But prayer is more than just spending a specific amount of time in prayer each day. Nowhere in the Bible does it say “spend X amount of hours in prayer” and God will be satisfied. My friend, He just wants YOU. Our faith isn’t measured by these legalistic measurements.

Want to know when my most intimate times with him are? In the car ride to school. Getting groceries. Making supper. Picking up. Taking a shower. Getting ready in the morning. There is no “boundary” to prayer. You see, prayer is a relationship building tool that God uses to connect our hearts with his. The Bible does give us guidelines in prayer, but in all of it, it’s simply put – time with Him. And we can do that at ANY point in our day! Even while sitting in the tube of a CT scan.

I was once told that it was sinful to fall asleep while praying. And now I’ve learned that all God wants is just me. However and whenever. Sometimes my most intimate moments with Him are during the least expected times. Picking up a quart of strawberries and thanking him for food. Driving to pick up my daughter and thanking him for a child we never thought we’d have. Preparing supper and thanking him for another day to live for Him.

It all comes back to HIM. You may be struggling to find time in your day to pray. Does God love our quiet, intimate moments with Him? Yes He does. Does He love our connections throughout the day, through the mundane? Yes He does. He just wants us and the more we find those connections, the more you are going to WANT Him and connect to Him through prayer. Don’t let the seasons of life stop you from having those moments. Even if it’s just for a few seconds, it’s time with Him.