How to pray when you don’t feel like it
We all know prayer works and prayer is good, but how can you pray when you don’t feel like it? Ever tried to pray and you just felt too tired to try? Is your prayer life suffering from a mirage There are days when I just find myself in a spiritual slump and there’s no motivation to read my bible or pray or share anything about God’s goodness? Now you may wonder how that’s possible for someone like me who frequently talks about the benefits of drawing close to God and building intimacy with the HolySpirit.
As long as I’m not yet like Jesus, there’s still a tendency for me to feel demotivated and discouraged on some days. This can happen to anybody, and it’s a humbling reality we face in the current world we live in. There are many reasons why we don’t feel like praying. Besides, the enemy of our souls goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom to devour and he knows that if he can attack your prayer life, he can attack everything else.
So how do you come out of a spiritual slump? Perhaps God’s silence about your situation has driven you to a place of solitude and apathy. Each day feels the same and nothing feels special about the new day. You’re not even looking forward to a new day because there’s nothing to anticipate. I’m here to help you revamp your prayer life and encourage you to keep pouring yourself into prayer until you see the fruit.
Understand what prayer is.
Prayer is the only way you can communicate with God. Prayer is one of the keys God has given us to access Him. It’s not just about asking for your needs but learning how to reignite love and passion for God. It’s a place to find refuge and strength in a world that’s gone mad. It’s the place where anxiety and worries are discarded as we lay them on the altar. It’s the place where you can put the focus off yourself and fixate your gaze back on Jesus. If we only see prayer as a tool to always ask, then it would definitely feel like a chore and we’ll rather seek quick answers outside God than spend time in prayer.
God is not a magician. He’s a father.
Develop the habit of speaking in tongues
There was a season when I was afraid to speak in tongues because I had little to no understanding about it. And so prayer felt like a chore because I would run out of words to say or keep thinking of what next. When we are not maximizing the full potential of something, it's easy to get discouraged along the way and put it aside. For example, if you purchased an iPhone and the only thing you could do with it was make a phone call, when you could do a thousand things with it, you might tire of it easily.
And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with NEW TONGUES;
Mark 16:17
The moment I discovered how praying in tongues was a free gift from my father to help my prayer life and also pray according to His will, my prayer life became a whole lot better.
Book recommendation: Tongues beyond the upper room my Kenneth Hagin
For those who still have questions about speaking in tongues, the book clarifies a lot of things. Speaking in tongues isn’t just a gift for ‘some’ people. According to Mark 16, it’s a sign that should follow ALL those who believe. The same way I’m capable of casting out demons and laying hands on the sick to get healed is the same way I should be able to speak in tongues without a doubt. As a believer, it’s part of the package so don’t let anyone confuse you about this. Don’t let your mind analyse something that should be done by faith either. We all know what happens when we try to use our senses to discern or define spiritual things.
Create a playlist
If there’s one thing that has contributed to my prayer life, it’s spirit-filled music. Whenever I don’t feel like praying, I listen to spirit-filled music on youtube and it gets my heart ready for worship and prayer. The reason why this is necessary sometimes is that we’re being bombarded by the world 24/7 and this can harden our hearts to the things of God. It can also make us dull of hearing. It’s the reason why I’m not an advocate of secular songs. Although some of them feel good and ‘clean’, it’s still birthed from flesh. And flesh cannot birth spirit. Spirit must birth Spirit. I noticed that on the days that I keep myself occupied with spirit-filled music, prayer feels so easy for me, compared to other days when it takes me time to really connect.
Also as long as our soul is still undergoing sanctification and salvation, we need to keep serenading it with songs that can soften our hearts toward God and what he has to say. It also reminds us of our state and humbles us before our King as we worship him through music and prayer. There was a day I didn’t feel like praying but I knew I had to. So I went to my bedroom, sat on a chair (not my bed so I don’t sleep off), and played Michael W. Smith’s song on Youtube. As I kept singing and worshipping, I just broke into tongues exalting my King and the rest is history.
Song recommendations:
Have a Prayer List
It’s impossible to pray for 10-20 minutes when there’s a list of people and things you have to pray for. Have you prayed for a deeper understanding of God? What about those around you that need to get saved? Or the friend or colleague that keeps stepping on your toes? What about your love walk? What about the scripture you read the other day and it wasn’t clear? The bible also admonishes us to pray for our leaders amidst many other things. There are so many things we need to commit to God in prayer so it would be wrong to assume we don’t have many things to pray about. There are so many but we just don’t know it yet. But the more we spend time with God, the more aware we’ll become.
If the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, it means we cannot ‘overdo’ it.
Spend time in the Word
The only way we can pray appropriately is by immersing ourselves in the word. This is how we enlighten and educate ourselves as seekers of God. If we lack the word in us, we will definitely find prayer boring. Also, we won’t even ask the right thing. Imagine if I kept asking for cookies when God wants to give me His kingdom? If we allow the word of God dwell richly in us, we will always look forward to praying because we will pray expectantly. We will pray as the spiritual literates that we are. And we will pray according to His will, knowing that if we pray according to His will, He hears us.
If my Father traveled to a far country and provided me with a way to contact him whenever I had to, would I hesitate? Would you? So how much more our heavenly father who loves us much more than our earthly parents. He has given us the HolySpirit-the best thing to ever happen to mankind to help us. So why do we hesitate?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Matthew 7:11
Book recommendation: Praying to get results by Kenneth Hagin
I hope this encourages you to rekindle your prayer life. If you’re able to get your prayer life going, you’ll discover that you’ll find answers to many problems that plague men on earth. I once saw a quote somewhere that said,
A man who gets down on his knees to pray can see more than a man who stands on a mountaintop