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3 Problems with Prayer

I think there’s a lot of applicable truth to Christ’s teaching to become as little children. As adults we tend to seriously over complicate things.  Look at prayer for example.  Kids get it right.  They know who they are talking to, they say what they feel, and that’s it. What a great example!  The problem is that as adults we refuse to believe anything can be that simple. We allow our mind to create doubts and concerns that inhibit our ability to communicate with God.  As a result our prayers lose their vigor, or even worse, we stop praying all together.

Here are three common questions we tend to have about prayer:

• How can God hear my prayers when there are millions of other people praying at the same time?
• Is God just a vague intelligence that keeps the universe in check, or is He really a personal God that hears my prayers?
• How can I continue to pray for help or forgiveness when I constantly make mistakes?

See what I mean?  When’s the last time your 4 year old dropped one of these questions on you? Seriously though, these are legitimate concerns.  Let’s see what we can do to address them.

1.  How is it possible for God to hear all of our prayers at the same time?

The problem is in the word “time”.  When we picture God listening to our prayers, we see Him the same way we would see ourselves trying to listen to 40 screaming children asking for something in unison.  The natural response would be to silence all of them, then address each child one at a time.  Dang, there’s that word again!

Here’s the thing:  God isn’t bound by time, He is eternal.  We, on the other hand, live in time.  One moment passes and is gone forever; and it’s now the past.  Not so with God.  All time is the present for Him.  We see our existence as it passes moment by moment on a timeline; God on the other hand sees the entire page the time line is written on.

I’ll paraphrase C. S. Lewis’s wonderful illustration of this principle: Imagine you’re writing a fictional book about your main character Mary.  She is sitting alone at her kitchen table, when there is a knock at the door.  In Mary’s world there is no delay between the knock and her response to go and answer.  But as the author, after the knock you can stop and think about Mary for three days if you like, because you are outside of her time sequence.  Mary would never know the difference.

The same is true with God except He is not bound by limited metal or emotional capacities.  He does focus specifically on each of us without being rushed along moment by moment.  He can spend a thousand years listening to a split second thought from our heart.  This is the miracle, isn’t it?  Despite how small we are and how great He is, we do have His undivided attention!

2.  Is the God of the Universe really a personal God?

There’s a lot of talk in today’s spiritual teachings of the universe, karma, and levels of consciousness...and frankly I’m in agreement with most of it.  But if I’m being honest with myself, I must admit it annoys me that many of these teachings don’t give credit where credit is due. What I mean is that you frequently hear of a great intelligence that keeps the Universe in balance, but seldom hear that the great intelligence is in fact a Personal God. This has its spiritual implications.  Why would I want to pray to a vague notion of intelligence? What would it care about my Math test, my problems at work, or my inner-most struggles?  Maybe I should forget about praying and just meditate so I can bring my energy in line with it.  Sorry….not trying to mock, but I’m making the point that if we don’t see the Almighty as a personal God it will affect our relationship with Him.

We have to know that He does care about the Math test.  He does care about our struggles and wants us to come to Him with our inner-most concerns. We should speak to Him as personally as we speak to our spouse or our best friend.  We should also listen for His counsel.  He is not just a mass of great collective intellect floating somewhere in space.  He is, in the truest since of the words, our Heavenly Father.

3.  How can I continue to pray for help and forgiveness when I constantly screw up?

One of the biggest tools the adversary uses on me is when I become convinced that God is annoyed by my prayers.

Like God’s up there thinking:

• “Oh gosh, here goes Jason again.”
• “Yeah, you’re sorry all right….you’ve used up your last sorry bud.”
• “Help?...yeah right!  What have you done with the help I’ve given you?”

When I’m having these thoughts I’m reluctant to pray with real intent, or sometimes to pray at all.  I believe we all have a tendency to place our own limitations on God’s ability to bless us. We feel unworthy of His forgiveness and undeserving of His help.  This is probably because we are indeed unworthy.  But we also believe that He responds to our mistakes the same way we would.  That’s the lie! It’s hard to comprehend unconditional love so we tend to believe it’s not possible, even by God.

We tend to think of our relationship with God like a checking account with a finite balance. Every time we make a mistake and ask for forgiveness, a withdrawal is made and the balance of the account diminishes.  Until one day our spiritual account with Him is overdrawn.

This principle has proven true with my personal finances, but is certainly not the case with God.  To be spiritually overdrawn with God would require Him to have a finite amount of love.  Not so, God’s love is infinite and unconditional.  This means there’s one account we have that can never be overdrawn baby….yeah!  Granted, we may be in trouble if we cancel the account but that’s another story.  The most profound thing to me is it seems that God sees a genuine plea for forgiveness as more of a deposit than a withdrawal.  He wants us to partake of His Love.

Satan would have us believe that we are unworthy of the Atonement of Christ.  This is one of the greatest lies he perpetuates.  Don’t buy into it!

Let’s pay attention the next time we hear a child pray. Let’s remember their innocent faith when our minds become clouded with notions of a distracted, impersonal, or unforgiving God.

So what has kept you from praying in the past?

Have you ever struggled with one of these problems?

Thanks for visiting and until next time, God Bless!