Prayer 05: When You Don't Want to Pray Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: Today we're going to talk about what to do when we don't want to pray. I'm just going to give myself away here and say that sometimes I go through seasons where I do feel a little bit more lethargic with prayer, or it's just—I don't know—I feel like I'm not doing very good at it, or I'm not on top of it, or it's just really hard to pray.
Laura Wifler: It's so weird. I feel like I'm really good at praying all the time.
[Laughter]
Emily: No, here's the thing. Whenever you're somebody who's struggling with prayer, it feels like everybody else is really good at prayer.
Laura: That is very, very true.
Emily: I will look around and be like, "Oh, she's so faithful. Whenever she says, 'I'll pray for you,' she does it every time."
Laura: Oh, I know. Hey, if you say that you're going to pray for somebody—hot tip– pray for them immediately, or you never will.
Emily: I know.
Laura: I feel like I've had to really say—if I say, "I will pray for you," in that moment, I will stop and pray. What about the times we don't want to pray? Right, that's what we're going to talk about today. Of course, I have times where I don't want to pray, or I just feel like it's the last thing on my mind. I hate that. I'll be just really honest—I hate that.
Emily: I know. It is really, really frustrating.
Laura: It's frustrating.
Emily: It makes me frustrated to talk about this because of how much I do long to have a prayer life. Then there are seasons where I get back into a habit or I do something consistently for a while and then I drop off the wagon for a while.
Laura: Yes. Why do we do that?
Emily: I don't know. It's just frustrating. I think back to when I was very first a Christian—I had this 45-minute commute to and from my school that I was going to at the time, and I would pray almost the whole time or I had these long, beautiful seasons between work. I'd drive in my car and just talk to God.
Laura: Oh, cute, little, Christian Emily.
Emily: I know. Now, I'm in the van and I'm like, "Quiet, kids."
[Laughter]
Laura: Speaking of kids, I think that's one of my number one concerns as a mom. When you see your child doesn't want to pray, or you feel like they have no interest in it, you're like, "Oh, is this a sign of where your future's headed or what the rest of your life is going to look like?" I think it can be easy as a mom to feel like your child's willingness to pray is a direct indicator of their spiritual status. That's not true because we can look at our own lives and see that we all have seasons of lethargy and prayer. We all have seasons where we don't necessarily feel like it.
It doesn't mean that it's right, but it also doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing. It's normal. It's a part of life post-fall. When we have these seasons, it's a chance for us to say, "Hey, why? Why is this going on?" There are a lot of different reasons why someone might not want to pray. There are things that we can do to get out of that habit. I think what's the scary thing is whenever you say, "I don't really care. I don't care that I'm not praying, and it doesn't matter to me."
Emily: We need to keep fighting. I know it's a cliché verse, but I think about it a lot with prayer: "Do not grow weary, do not grow weary of doing good." I was also reading a little bit recently about the concept of hardening your heart and how the more time we spend out of prayer and the more time we spend away from God's Word, we can start to harden our hearts and become calloused to going to the Lord. The best antidote is for us to just start praying, again, which we're going to get into.
Laura: Praying begets praying. I know for me, one of the reasons why I don't want to pray is if there is sin between me and God. I think of myself like Adam and Eve hiding behind the little bush in the garden and knowing that I've done something wrong and just feeling ashamed or guilty. It's funny because it's like—that's the very time we need God the most, and it's a time for us to be able to come and get clean and to change. But we often—or I often let it go unresolved and I will—I don't know, I'll just say, "I'm not worthy to approach God" and so I won't. I don't know.
Emily: It's just like avoiding it because, as a Christian, I think—oh, we know, hey, if we confess our sins to God, he is faithful to forgive. But we have to confess them. Or like that reality that we are supposed to be sharing with him, even though he already knows. For me, I think it can be like this big, nebulous feeling of sin. I'm sure there've been times where I haven't approached God because of a specific sin, but then other times, it's just this general feeling of, "I don't really have myself together. I've not really been very faithful lately. I've been watching a little bit too much TV at night"— or whatever those things are, and so you want to just continue in that and, exactly like the garden, just pull away. The good news is, in Christ, we are in union with Christ. There isn't the separation there that we imagine. We do need to run back to him knowing that we are fully righteous, fully clean, fully forgiven and that he is merciful and kind towards us in Christ.
Laura: That's what's funny, I think, about it is that, like the very thing that's keeping us from praying and the very thing that we're afraid to do is what we need to do, what we must do. We need to come and talk with God, confess our sin, repent. Even this idea of "Oh, I don't really want God." Well, that's a sin in and of itself. That is sin keeping us from God. It's not just this benign thing, but us saying, "I really like my way more, or I really like watching my TV more than spending time with God." Anything on the throne other than God—that's sin.
We have to confess that, and we can, like Emily said, because of Jesus. We can come and approach the throne of grace with boldness. We can say, "Lord, I've messed up. God, you haven't been as important to me as I wanted you to be. Will you forgive me for that?" That is our way forward when there is sin between us and God. I think it can be specific, big sins, but it can also be like you're saying, Emily—like there's this big, nebulous thing, but either one keeps us away.
Emily: Have you heard of—I feel like I've told you about this before, but—"watershed moments?"
Laura: Oh, yes.
Emily: Yes. I feel like I heard about that on a podcast I listened to a while back. I think it was David Powlison talking about moments in our day and in our lives where he calls it "watershed"—where you imagine the point on top of a roof and the water comes down and hits it and it has to go one direction or the other direction and how we need to realize that, every moment, we have a chance to go back the other direction for, like, the water to shed the other way. Like, if we've been prayerless and we've been headed in one direction, we can have another moment and push it back the other way and that there isn't—sometimes we can think, "Oh, we're too far gone," but it's like, no! We can still head the right direction.
Laura: How we talk about this with our kids or how I try to do it is—I think we need to build in a right theology of what sin is for children and to know that every sin is against God. Even if they sinned against their sibling, that that is still a sin against God. More than that, I have really focused on trying to build in this idea that God is kind and loving and tender and that, in Christ, they can always come, and they can always talk with God. Instead of focusing on like, "Hey, you need to pray because you don't want to burn in hell if you don't trust God." Instead, focusing on saying, "Look, what a great gift it is that you can talk with God any time and that you will always receive forgiveness. You can never do something so bad that you can't approach the throne of grace anymore."
We can talk with our kids just about showing them a beautiful, loving, approachable God so that they know no matter how deep in the muck and mire they get, that they will always be received by him.
Emily: I think to piggyback on that, another barrier can be relational discord or having somebody in our life that we are in significant conflict with, or we have quite a bit of bitterness that we're harboring towards them, or we have some offenses that we haven't forgiven yet. I think Scripture talks pretty strongly in a lot of places about—if we love God, then we also need to love others and not just others, but particularly, our brothers and sisters in Christ.
If you're married, we need to be in right relationship with our spouse. I think that if we don't have right relationship—actually Scripture. Oh yes. Okay. I have the reference right here. Scripture in Mark 11:25 says, "Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven will also forgive your wrongdoing." It's just this idea that, hey, if you're coming to the Father to pray— it's the story of the debtor I was talking about where he's forgiven this great debt. Then he goes around to collect on a tiny debt. If we're going to come to the Lord and ask for him to forgive a great debt and to be coming in Jesus' name like we've talked about, we better not be holding a tiny debt against somebody else. That's a hard thing to swallow.
Laura: Well, it's something that I think, for me—I will often pray, "Lord, see if there'd be any offensive way in me" from the Psalms. I will pray for the Spirit to convict me of sin and, merging these two together with the relational and also sin against God, I just pray for the Spirit to convict me of things.
Emily: Have you ever, real quick, had a moment where you're praying for somebody else and like, "God fix them," and all of a sudden, your prayer is like, "Wait, and if I'm doing something wrong—"
Laura: —Absolutely!
Emily: —Where I'm doing this wrong!" The Spirit starts bringing things to mind. By the end, you're praying like, "God, I'm sorry. I have sinned in this way." He's sneaky like that.
Laura: Oh, totally. I think for me, I have felt like—I'll tell this story and I don't think my parents will mind because it's really about me—but I for many years prayed that the Spirit would show me conviction of sin. There'd be lots of things, like you were talking about, that the Lord would show me and reveal to me—just things that were like, blatantly obvious. You sin and you're like, "I should not have yelled that way. Or I should not have said those words," but I kept thinking about this time when I was growing up that I actually stole money from my parents.
Emily: I can't believe that, Laura.
Laura: I know! [Laughs] You guys, I was like a pretty good kid in general, a moral kid that really wanted to honor and love her parents. I really didn't do much wild, let's say that, but I did! I stole money. I can't believe I'm telling everybody this, but I stole this money, and I knew it was wrong obviously, but my parents had no idea. Years and years have gone by. I am now in my mid-thirties and I would pray. That specific instance of stealing from my parents never really came up in my specific prayers. The Lord would remind me in other random times—just driving in the car, I would think of it. Or I would think of it when I'm hanging out with my husband on a date or it would just randomly come to me, like, "You shouldn't have done that" or "That wasn't okay." Just little thoughts like that. I just kept fighting it.
I knew I should tell my parents, but we have a great relationship. We're doing fine, and I didn't want to ruin that. I didn't, but I knew that there was sin between me and them. There was sin between God and I, even though I confessed to God, I'd repented to God—there was still relational discord that was broken. Even if my parents didn't know, it was the Spirit convicting me hard. You guys, last year—last year!—I told my parents, and it was very uneventful.
They were like, "What?" [Laughter] I honestly have felt so much better since I confessed that and got out in the open, and it's not a part of my story. They could've gone on a long time and never known, but for me, the Spirit was saying, "Hey, there is unresolved stuff here that you need to deal with. There is sin you need to clean up." I'm so thankful that I finally did that because I haven't thought about it one time. I tell you what, I started thinking about it almost weekly. It was crazy. It was crazy.
Emily: It's a good story. I've never heard that story before.
[Laughter]
Laura: Well, I kept it hidden for a long—I told my husband first, actually, and he died. He thought it was like the funniest thing ever that I stole a bunch of money from my parents. I'm like, "It's not funny." He's like, "I just can't even imagine you doing that and stuff." Anyway, all is good now.
Emily: Oh, man. Well, I know that we've probably shared this on the show before, but it's been so helpful to me. I think we'll share it again. Early on, I think it was when we got married, somebody told us to get into the habit of having a script for forgiveness with one another and practicing it right away whenever we'd offended each other. Brad and I learned this script and did it when we were early married, but then we started doing it with our kids when they were really young, and I am just shocked at how much it has stuck and they will just do it automatically now. I'm so hopeful that as they get older, asking for forgiveness and reconciling a relationship—wow, I'm sure the things will get bigger. It will feel like this automatic—not this big, massive thing because it's just a part of our conversation.
The way it goes, and it's changed a little bit as they’ve gotten older, but they'll say, "I am sorry I…" Then they have to name their specific thing. "Will you forgive me for…" Specific thing. Then we've gotten to adding on a piece that essentially says, "Next time, I will…" Then they say the right thing. We encourage them to hug or high-five. Sometimes the hug turns into a wrestle and like, "Now, we need to ask forgiveness." [Laughs] And then trying to press deeper into, not just, "I'm sorry that I pushed you," but "I'm sorry I was hateful towards you" or "I'm sorry (whatever the deeper thing was)," or "I'm sorry that I was greedy." It's just been really good to watch them reconcile, and then it's over and they can go play together. It's not to say like every single pain is healed and all that stuff, but it's just—I think it keeps short accounts. I've learned that so much in life as an adult; just keep short accounts. It doesn't get easier later.
Laura: It doesn't. Giving them the language of forgiveness and apology is huge. For us—I think you say this too—what we always say is, "Will you forgive me?" Those are important words where the other person then needs to respond as well and not harbor that bitterness or hold it over them, but that other person has to respond and say, "Yes, I forgive you." That's the key part. Yes, we have a similar script.
Okay. Another one that I know I personally have even experienced is just the question of doubts or unbelief and how those play into your prayer life. I think that this can go a lot of different ways. Em and I were talking before the show and saying, "Oh, what's the best word to use, and what does each one mean?" I think you can use them in lots of different ways. I know that when you're experiencing unbelief, you're thinking about, perhaps, "Are God's promises real? Does he hear me? Does he actually answer prayer?"
A lot of those questions—those are normal questions that lots of people ask. I know my kiddos have even asked, "If I can’t see God, how do I know that he can hear me?" Lots of questions like that that are really normal. Perhaps you're thinking some of those things, and that's just where there might be some good change in theology that needs to happen. A change in understanding that God's promises are true and real and that he is for you. Or maybe you're thinking about an overall doubt of like, "Is this whole Christian thing even real? Is all the stuff that I'm giving my life to real?"
I know I personally have gone through seasons of asking that question, and that's where you just have to choose to doubt towards God and choose to say that "God, even in these dark seasons of the soul, I still want to remain faithful to you." Those can be seasons that are really hard to pray. That it feels like you don't know if God is hearing you, but getting wise friends around you, getting people who love you, remaining in the church, doing the disciplines of grace—all of those things are going to help keep you walking through those seasons still remaining faithful through all of that.
Emily: For sure. I know another thing that I've experienced in my life—and I can remember a time before Christ and a time after Christ. I look back on some of those years growing up and I would occasionally pray or cry out to the Lord. But in hindsight, as I can experience a regenerate heart now—and certainly like I struggle with seasons of prayerlessness; I don't always turn to the Lord first and perfectly every single time—but I can really see a difference that back then I wasn't filled with the Spirit. I wasn't even able to comprehend or see or understand the things of God. It makes sense that prayer was dry to me, or it was nothing to me, or that I would throw something out there and had no experience or no feeling, or just felt totally disconnected from God—because I actually was. My relationship with God was not reconciled through Jesus Christ.
Even though I think that can be a hard question to ask, I don't necessarily think for some of us that that's a healthy thing to go over and over and over and over again if you have already put your faith in Christ, but it is possible that if we're really struggling to have a vibrant prayer life, if we're struggling to sense God's presence or believe his promises—it's worth asking, "Have I truly put my faith in Jesus Christ? Have I truly repented of my sin? Have I asked him to show me the beauties of the gospel so that I can follow him, and the Spirit can live inside me?" because it's possible that could be going on.
Laura: Yes, I remember, though, talking with somebody who said that when she was in high school, she confessed and asked Jesus into her heart like twelve times. She would do it every year, not really being sure. You're right. There's a balance to strike there of not constantly questioning whether you're safe, because that's a promise of God—that he keeps us and that his Son is who paved the way, not our incessant asking and rechecking. We can have assurance of salvation. Also, like you're saying, Emily, I think that's really good—just saying, "Deep down, is this truly what I believe?"
You might have seasons where you're not totally sure because, for one reason or another, things just seem hard or difficult—a season of suffering. That's where, even in your season that you're talking about or in my seasons, continuing to learn and grow in the Christian faith and be around people who love Jesus—that's almost contagious. I think, for me, in any season of unbelief or doubt, the thing that has been most helpful for me to remember is that God can handle my brutal honesty about where I'm at. He can handle my fears, my doubts, my questions, my areas where I need reassurance. We can look at Job, we can look at Lamentations, we can look at the Psalms, we can look at so many heroes of the faith who at different times had questions, who faced unbelief, yet God kept them, and they continued, in their doubts, to lean towards God, to lean and doubt in a way that continued to keep them attached to the vine and seeking Jesus in all of it.
Emily: Changing gears here. I know we've talked a lot about things like our theology and our questions about God and our sin and our relational conflict. I just want to level here that sometimes, for me—I don't want to un-spiritualize it—but there is a real aspect of habit to it. I have done a lot of reading on habits and willpower and self-control over the last few years. I don't know why it's a topic I'm interested in because I feel like I struggle with self-discipline.
Laura: Because you have none. I'm just kidding. [Laughs]
Emily: Because I have none. [Laughter] I am the person who's like, "I tried that three days ago and now I'm done." It's very frustrating to me and I get frustrated because, yes—you guys know. You've tried starting new habits. You know what it's like.
Laura: We all totally get how difficult that is, yes.
Emily: Anyways, some of this is—I don't have like a specific piece of information or a specific study to tie this back to, so just go do your own reading, your own research if you're like, "Is this true or not true?" Go look it up.
Laura: Emily might be just be making all sorts of things up. [Laughter]
Emily: Go Google. [Laughs] Essentially, what I understand is that our brains form neurological pathways. We have basically a memory or a path of least resistance. We, most of the time, operate off of those automatic pathways. When something fires in our brain, it takes the road that's already been established. The longer you do something and the more times you repeat it, the stronger that connection is and the harder it is to break in our brains. There is a very real—as far as I understand it—physical reason why it is hard for you to just wake up one morning and be like, "I'm going to be a prayer warrior today. I'm going to pray 100 billion times today even though yesterday I prayed no times."
You're fighting your brain. It's going to just take the way that you've been doing it before. Now, I 100% believe the Holy Spirit can do miraculous, amazing things and can cause new things to happen and he can give us strength we didn't know. I am not trying to negate that at all, but I am trying to say that, over time, I have learned that if I'm going to form a new habit like prayer—and prayer is similar to a lot of different things we do in life like "I want to start eating healthier. I want to start exercising. I want to start calling my mom. I want to start kissing my kids before they go off to school."
We have to set up scaffolding and all kinds of different things in our life to help us break that rut and form a new neurological pathway and then reinforce that new pathway. I think that there is a real element involved whenever we're trying to say, "Hey, I've been prayerless. I've been lethargic and I want to start this new thing." We may not be able to just magically do that with no help. That's all.
Laura: That was good. That was scientific. I believe that that was some real research happening there. You got me. [Laughter] I think you are totally, totally right. Em and I were talking kind of off-air, off recording—she was like, "Well, I see this side." I'm like, "I just often think, like, prayer's boring." Apparently, I can't focus enough on prayer because I will want to pray—like you're saying, I want to develop a habit of prayer. I want to pray all day, every day, and be a prayer warrior. But then it's like, "Oh, my to-do list," or I'm remembering things—I 100% believe that Satan is on alert and on arms. When we start praying, he's like, "I'm going to stick all sorts of things—you will remember stuff you've never remembered before." You're going to be thinking about all sorts of important things that you've forgotten all day long and all these times, but he is bringing in—waging war. I really, really believe that because I'm like, "Why haven't I thought of that any other time of the day," but then suddenly when I want to pray, I'm distracted. There are 100 zillion things that my mind wants to think about over my prayer. You've talked about writing down your prayers. I speak aloud. I speak verbally my prayers. In a whisper, usually, in the morning, but it helps me to focus, like you're saying.
With that, I definitely think those things are very, very related—that I just look at it as like, "I'm a self-disciplined person. You tell me to get up every morning and I'm going to check that off the list. I'm going to do it to a T." My heart might not be in it, but I have a lot of willpower, I guess you would say. Yet, I still find prayerlessness to be a massive issue in my life. I think it's somewhat related, where my brain is saying, "What's easiest right now?"
Emily: Yes, I think that's so true. We only have a limited amount of willpower which you're talking about. We all have a different amount of willpower. What I've read is that everybody's brain has a different capacity for being able to develop these new things or withstand hard feelings. What happens is our willpower can only be poured out to a certain degree each day. We have a tank. If you're running on low sleep, your tank gets depleted. If you're stressed, if you're hungry, if you're trying to form any other habits at that time like, "Hey, I'm trying to use social media less" or "Hey, I'm trying to also start this new diet," or "Hey, I'm also trying to not yell at my kids"— you just really quickly cannot use that. If you're going, "Hey, I really want to stay focused on my prayers," we have to realize we can't just rely on our willpower alone to be able to suddenly, magically become these amazing pray-ers. We have to have more habits in life or create those habits more intentionally.
Laura: Well, it's interesting to think about what even Christian culture has out there for so much quiet time. There's been so many reels made about how to have a quiet time, but how many reels do we really have about praying or building that habit. There's tons of diet ones, there's tons of what clothes to buy, how to edit your closet, what makeup to wear, and all things like that. Thinking about building prayer as a habit and as a practice, it does mean, like you're saying, we all think we're going to miraculously wake up and just have the resolve or that the Spirit is going to work a miracle.
Emily: Yes, that's a spiritual thing. I'll just start wanting to do that.
Laura: Yes. The Holy Spirit can do that. Usually, it's by nose-to-the-grindstone saying, "Hey, I want this more than I want these other things, so I am going to prioritize this and carve out room in my life to build this." Not just relying on total resolve but other things around you supporting you—being successful in that habit.
Emily: Yes. My favorite willpower and prayer story that I'll tell really quick from Scripture is just when Jesus is in the garden with his disciples. Imagine you're there and you're like, "Okay, I'm with Jesus. He's getting ready to go to the cross. I don't understand, but this is his moment where he needs me." He's like, "Okay, just stay awake and pray. It's one night. It's a few hours. That's all you have to do. Just stay awake and pray with me." What did they do? They all fall asleep! I just think, if the disciples in the garden cannot will themselves—I think it just reveals Jesus was the only one who stayed awake.
Jesus was the one who sweat blood, poured out the tears, and persevered and overcame any—yes, he was fully man and he was fully God. He did it perfectly. That's what I rest in in those moments. When I think like, "This habit is so hard to build." It is "Praise the Lord that Christ did it perfectly."
Laura: It's worth fighting for.
Emily: Yes.
Laura: It's worth building. I think there's these habits that we can develop and build and these ways that we can support it. Then also thinking through—I think you have to ask at some point, is Jesus most glorious to you? Do you love God the most? Are you in awe of him? Because if we don't have that part, that component to our souls, and if God is not on the throne in your heart, then why would you pray? You're not going to see him as powerful enough to make any changes in your life. We have to also cultivate that awe of God as we cultivate a discipline of prayer. As those two things walk forward in tandem, I think then you begin to see, "Oh, my heart is changing and my hands are changing—they're going together as I build the habit." For me, when I've been in better seasons of prayer, it's usually because those two things are firing more together.
Emily: Yes. You said this earlier, but I think it's a good note to end on. It’s that prayer begets prayer. It doesn't really matter, like—do we need to wait to feel like we're going to pray? Or should we just pray first? It's like, just pray!
[Laughter]
Just do it now because it's going to—I think as we practice it and we spend time talking to God, and we spend time listening to him through his Word and we have the interaction, it's going to make us go, "Oh, this God is worth it. He's glorious. He's wonderful. Look how amazing Christ was." I was just praying on my way here today and I started the traditional format prayer I like to do of—thank God and then praise him for his character. You go through all those things, then I'll ask him for what I need—and I could not get past thanking him for who he was and praising him! I just kept going on and on, and then I would think of another thing and another thing and another thing, and it was so cool. I felt like, here I came to the Lord because I just really wanted to ask him for help on X, Y, and Z, and I just spent most of my prayer talking about how amazing he was, and it made me want to be around him more or think about him more. I know that happens as we pray and as we spend time with God.
Laura: Yes. We talk about prayer changing things. It changes your heart, and it will grow your love for God. Thank you so much for tuning in to our mini-series on prayer. If you've missed any episodes, this is a great chance to go back and catch up. We have loved diving deep into this topic with all of you guys. We just pray that Risen Motherhood does become a real praying community of moms. Moms that are just uniting their voices together before the throne of God and asking and praying for God to just bring his plan to fruition and to have his will be done here on earth.
