Two barriers to prayer

Christ in Glory, a stained glass window by Pugin in Ushaw College 

Prayer has been the most difficult spiritual discipline for me. If you are like me, you could give a lot of reasons for why you don’t pray or why our practice of prayer isn’t what you would like it to be, but essentially all these reasons are versions of the same two problems.  

1. We don’t have time.  
or
2. We don’t really know how to pray.

Not enough time

First, let’s talk about busyness. We are all busy. Life is hectic and sometimes it seems like we can’t even find a few minutes to ourselves each day. How can we make time for prayer when it seems like there is always too much to do and not enough time to do it? Maybe your schedule is so full that you can’t spare a minute, if that’s the case I can’t help you except to say that you should probably relax a little, but having time to pray is about making time to pray. If you don’t make time, you’ll never have time. This all comes down to priorities. You’ll make time for the things you value and if prayer is a value and you make it a priority, you’ll always be able to make time for it. Plus, once you start to see the benefits, you’ll be motivated to keep going.  

Don’t know how

Second, how should we pray? Once again, if you are like me, even if you set aside time to pray and put yourself in an environment where you aren’t going to be interrupted, you somehow still manage to get distracted. You start praying, your mind starts to wander, and before you know it, you’ve entirely forgotten what you were doing. Then, again if you’re like me, you get frustrated and think "ok, focus, pray!" Then within a minute you’re distracted again and the whole process feels more discouraging than encouraging, more like a defeat than a victory. It’s ok. It takes practice. We have to train ourselves to pray, and we have to be taught how to pray. If it was that easy and natural, then we wouldn’t need to be told to do it. But there are better and worse ways to pray. There are methods and patterns that can help keep us focused and push through towards moments of sublime intimacy with God.  

Conclusion

Have hope. You, despite busyness, can make time for prayer. It’s possible. You can also learn how to pray in ways that are meaningful, powerful and biblical. The book of James in the New Testament says, "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again, he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops" (Jam 16b–18). We can have effective prayer lives. But we need a model, someone who made time for prayer even in the midst of busyness and someone who can teach us how
to pray. We need a model, but more than that we need someone who can come alongside us in prayer, lift us up, and intercede for us. We need Jesus, and it is his prayer life, his teaching, and his help that makes a life of prayer possible. If you want to learn how to pray, read the Gospel of Luke and soak up everything it says about Jesus prayer life. You can also check out my book on prayer called How to Talk to God: Developing a Meaningful Practice of Prayer. It is a short primer on prayer that can hopefully get you started and help you deepen your prayer life.