When You Don’t Feel Like Praying
One of my favorite TV shows is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It’s a show about a mischievous, hilarious high school kid who moves to California to live with his well-to-do Aunt and Uncle. On the last episode of the series, Will is moving out of the home, gazing off into the empty living room while recounting the memories he made there. I was having my own “Will Smith” moment a few weeks ago when Andrew and I moved out of our high rise apartment. Our whole first year of marriage was built in that tiny glasshouse overlooking midtown Atlanta in the thick of the COVID-19 Quarantine.
During our first week there, the world was still on lockdown. I remember feeling prompted each day to pray throughout our home. Day after day, I delayed that prompt. I put it off because I wasn’t in the “praying” mood. You know, the mood where you actually want to pray. When the scriptures roll off your tongue, the waterworks start flowing and before you know it an hour has gone by. I wasn’t in that space, so I didn’t think my prayers would be productive or effective. After all, wouldn’t it be “fake” to pray to the Lord when I didn’t “feel” like it? Wouldn’t God prefer me to pray to Him when I’m actually excited about prayer?
In Dr. Emerson Eggerich’s book titled “Love and Respect”, he tackles this very issue of feeling disingenuous in the context of relationships and marriage. Many spouses have shared with him that they cannot show love or respect to their partners when they don’t “feel” like doing it, because that would be hypocritical. Emerson uses our relationships with the Lord to address that concern:
Trusting and obeying God’s Word because we love and reverence God never, ever makes us a hypocrite! When the alarm goes off in the morning, we get up, even when we don’t feel like getting up. Because we don’t feel like doing it, does that make us hypocrites? No, it is a sign we are responsible people. Showing respectful behavior when we don’t “feel respectful” is evidence of maturity, not hypocrisy.
That same logic can be used to address how we should approach prayer: Praying to the Lord when we don’t feel like doing it is evidence of maturity, not hypocrisy. In fact, I would argue that your prayers carry a different meaning when you aren’t in the mood to pray. Pushing past what the flesh prefers to do what the spirit needs is a sacrifice that will always please God. Our savior and high priest, Jesus Christ knows exactly what it’s like to feel a war between the flesh and the spirit. It’s exactly why He gave His disciples this warning in Matthew 26:41:
Stay alert; be in prayer so you don't wander into temptation without even knowing you're in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there's another part that's as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.
This verse makes me want to exhale. Breathe a little bit. Let out a sigh of relief. Because it lets me know that the God of this universe is not some distant man upstairs who cannot empathize with the realities of my human nature. He is well aware that there are parts of me that simply do not naturally desire Him. It’s not a surprise, and it does not catch Him off guard. In fact, He has already provided the perfect antidote to our dilemma: the Holy Spirit. Jesus urged His disciples with these words before His departure in John 16:7:
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
I always wondered: “What could possibly be better than having Jesus on earth with us?”. I am guilty of saying things like “If only I could ask Jesus this question.” or “If only I could see Jesus here on earth face to face.” Although that would be ASTOUNDING to experience, there’s a very logical reason why Jesus tells His disciples that they are better off with His ascension to heaven: so that the Holy Spirit could descend into the hearts of man. Jesus knew that the presence and work of the Holy Spirit would actually be more effective for believers than the physical, bodily presence of Jesus (who can only be in one place at a time!)
Through the Holy Spirit, the impossible becomes possible. Here are some practical ways this truth has shown up in my personal life:
I now grieve the sins I commit more than the consequences of them
I actually enjoy listening to worship music
I am able to sincerely love people who have treated me poorly (from a distance)
In all these areas, the Holy Spirit has been the secret ingredient. In the same way He has helped me in these areas, He also helps in prayer. And so, after putting off this urge to pray throughout our home during our first week in our apartment, I heard these words in my spirit: “Just start praying. I will help you.” I know now that it was the Holy Spirit, promising to do what He does best: lead and guide us.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27
I started my prayer for our home in honesty, admitting that I needed help to even feel motivated to pray. My words began scripted, praying through promises from God’s Word that were scattered across a page of my prayer journal. When the words don’t come to me, I know I can never go wrong by praying what is already in God’s Word. In fact, praying the promises of God is the surest way to see results. Why? Because He promises us that His Word will never return void.
As I kept praying, the Holy Spirit also put His specific prayers for our home on my lips. Things I wouldn’t have thought to pray on my own. This is an important piece of prayer that is often forgotten: listening. Prayer is just as much listening to God speak as it is speaking to God. Communication is a two-way street, and prayer is no different. Don’t be afraid of silence. Your prayer doesn’t have to be a continuous chain of requests. Give the Holy Spirit room to speak to your spirit. There are times that I sit in silence and hear nothing. There are other times that I sit in silence and sense something being said to me. But without giving God space to speak, it will be impossible to hear.
I used to think that effective prayers required a certain length, depth and gifting. If that was the case, many of our prayers would never be heard. We are beyond blessed to have a God who looks at the posture of our heart before the stature of our speech. An effective prayer doesn’t start with volume, tears, or tongues. An effective prayer begins with submission to the Holy Spirit. Just make yourself available, start with honest words, and He will take it from there.
