why is it so difficult to prayer

Recently, I was with a bunch of people discussing different spiritual disciplines, which help foster spiritual growth. Most, if not all of the people, spoke of how they find prayer to be one of the most difficult things to do. This may not seem surprising to you, but it was surprising to me as the group of people I was having this discussion with where all seminary students - people who had devoted a large portion of their time to the study of Scripture and all things theological.

After all, surely if you are in seminary school you would be praying a lot, right? Well… this doesn’t appear to be the case.  This led me to ask the question, what are the reasons that so many of us struggle with prayer? Wanting to understand how other people thought about this, I emailed a number of my close Christian friends and asked them this question. Again, I was somewhat surprised by the answers they gave me. Here is what a few of them said:

Why is it so difficult to pray?


Let’s be honest for a second. How many of you struggle with prayer? I’m not talking about the odd request that we rattle off to God when we wake up or before we go to bed.

I mean more than a few minutes a day that are set apart for intercession.  I mean prayer that changes our hearts towards what we are praying for, or prayers that are filled with power to change the world.

My instinctive response would be…”not often enough!” I would guess that most of your responses would be the same. Most people, in particularly leaders, just seem to be TOO BUSY to pray. But maybe it’s more of an excuse and there are deeper reasons that we find it difficult to pray.
“I guess the obvious answer is busyness that seems more pressing which often leaves me physically too exhausted to be in good shape for a flourishing prayer life. The problem with this reason is that busyness only appears to be the problem but it isn’t. I can make time for other things that are important, like school work, hanging out with mates, watching sport etc. so i guess one of the roots of the problem is that prayer often just isn’t that important to me. Very sad but my actions validate this point.”
“Time.”
“Ability to focus (distraction - I have a million things going on in my head all the time)”
“Grappling with prayer in terms of its power/does it change situations/or is it my wishful thinking/or is it to deepen my relationship and dependence on God? “
“Fatigue.”
“The main reason I don't get around to praying is because of the emotional and spiritual effort of focusing my mind in prayer. It always seems to hang over me as a burden and I can never stay focused for very long, so there is an implicit sense of failure that I feel regarding my prayer life, as if I am not "putting in enough hours."
“I always feel too busy to pray, since I never really feel like doing it, I always choose some other responsibility to give my time to.”
“Procrastination and people.”

I’m not sure which of these responses you identify with most, but I know that most - if not all - resonant with me in one way or another. These responses ultimately evoke more questions. What are the underlying reasons that elicit these responses? Why do so many of us have the same frustrations and attitude and how can we think differently about prayer? Are some of us just good at praying and other not, or is this a discipline that needs to be practiced?
This leads us to question - what is man’s responsibility and what is God’s responsibility? This then leads us to enquire more about the sovereignty of God and our part in participating in His ultimate will. All in all, the matter of prayer becomes quite complex.

So let’s recap… the main things that seem to be hindering prayer are:
BUSYNESS
LACK OF TIME / PROCRASTINATION
LACK OF DESIRE TO PRAYER
LACK OF FOCUS
FATIGUE
QUESTIONING THE IMPLICATIONS OF PRAYER (does prayer really change anything?)
It is clear through Scripture, literature and observance of the great disciples of faith, that prayer is critical and if not practiced we become ineffective in our abilities and in our daily lives. This doesn’t mean to say that God won’t use us, but maybe not to the full extent of how He could.
Next we will look discussing and overcoming these challenges and how we can develop a fresh vision for prayer!