Why You Don't Feel Like Praying

We’ve discussed how to pray on this channel in great detail but what should you do if you ever find yourself in a situation where you just don’t want to do it? If you’ve lost your desire to pray, today we're going to address some of the major feelings and emotions contributing to your lack of desire when it comes to prayer and what to do so you can reignite your desire to keep praying. 

As much as we’ve learned about the numerous benefits of prayer, you’d think it would always come easy. But as someone who has walked with the Lord for a long time, I know first-hand it’s not always that simple. I remember going through a particular season in my life where I would feel nervous every night before praying. I was struggling with doubt if God really heard my prayers, and if I was worthy enough to have my prayers heard in the first place. 

This struggle made me not want to pray. I just didn’t feel like it even knowing that I needed to pray. One night I became so overwhelmed I just didn’t pray at all. I was tired of fighting the feeling of not wanting to pray that I just didn’t. And the next day I paid for it. I felt so off and not myself. Although I may not have felt like praying, it was clear that prayer was a key component in my spiritual well-being, as we’ve discussed before whether I felt like doing it or not. After that, I no longer allowed my feelings to lead my decision to pray. If I didn’t feel like praying or even if I didn’t feel like God heard me, it didn’t matter. I chose faith over feelings. I chose to believe that even if I didn’t feel like it today, God would always honor my prayers in His own way and time. And not being led by your feelings is an important lesson for all believers. Because feelings come and go so they do not create a firm foundation to set our spiritual growth. Yet we are all called to navigate our feelings while still choosing faith, even when it comes to our prayer life. Prayer in fact is an act of faith. We have faith that God hears us, we have faith that He will answer, we have faith that prayer is powerful. When we have this faith, we are then motivated to pray. 

But today I’m not here to only say, just have faith, although that is very important. Today I don’t want us to ignore the feelings we’re experiencing that are causing us to not want to pray because it is completely normal as people to battle between our faith and our feelings. 

I believe feelings are not to be ignored. They are indicators as to what deeper may be going on within us that needs to be addressed. So today I want to discuss some of the feelings that challenge our desire to pray so that we can find the faith to keep praying anyway.

SADNESS

The first feeling I want to discuss that may be hindering your desire to pray is sadness. This is an important emotion to address because it reveals that in some areas of our life, we are experiencing some sort of brokenness and thus we are in need of healing. Sadness is such a heavy emotion that we may not feel like doing anything, even praying. But I want to remind you of this truth in Psalm 34:18 when you’re feeling down:

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18 ESV)

In your feelings of grief and sadness, God is with you. He is not only with you; the Bible tells us He is close. We can pray to Him knowing that He’s not far away and He desires that we reach out to him. If your strength is gone due to grief, I want to remind you your prayer to God doesn’t have to be extravagant. A simple “Jesus help me today” may be the only prayer you can muster the strength to say but God hears, and He will answer. When someone is close to you, you don’t have to yell and scream and use all your energy to get their attention. When our hearts are broken, we don’t have all that energy in the first place, but we don’t need it. God is near and He will hear the gentle whisper of a prayer at night in our bed, the soft cry for help while driving in the car or the tears that roll down our faces asking for the help to do what we cannot.

DOUBT

The next feeling we may experience that can cause us not to want to pray is doubt. When we are not sure if God hears us, we really don’t feel like praying because it just feels like a waste of time. Have you ever prayed and it felt like you were talking to the wall? Not a good and motivating feeling that makes you want to pray right?

Our struggle with doubt can many times be rooted in our view of God and what we know about Him or what we don’t know about Him. The truth is, the Bible reveals that God is with us, he cares for us, and He does hear our prayers.

When I think of someone who rejected doubt and chose to pray anyway, I think of Daniel. For three weeks, Daniel prayed and fasted for God to answer his prayer and he did not stop until he got an answer. In Daniel Chapter 10, we read that God sent an angel to give Daniel understanding about his prayer the first time he prayed.  Daniel 10:12 reads:

“Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.” (‭‭Daniel‬ ‭10:12‬ ‭ESV‬‬)

The Bible tells us “since the first day” Daniel prayed, God answered. The first day. How encouraging is it to know that those prayers you’ve been praying were heard the very first time, that God is moving in the heavenly realm to answer your prayers even when it looks like nothing is happening, when it looks like you’ve waited beyond your waiting point, and there is no sign or clue in sight of what you’ve been waiting for. How freeing is it to know that God is working on it right now as we speak.

But what if Daniel doubted? What if he stopped praying the first time because he didn’t get an immediate answer? Daniel chose to believe beyond what he could see and cling to the truth about God: that God is real and He does hear and answer our prayers. If we don’t believe this, doubt will win.

This is what I want to challenge you with: if you are going to doubt, doubt your doubt. Ask yourself, what if God does hear you? What if what you need is one prayer away? What if Jesus is telling the truth when He says He will answer when we call?

FEAR

The next feeling we may have to overcome to be motivated to pray is fear. When we have an incorrect view of God, we can start to fear God, and not fear as in reverence or honor God which is what the Bible instructs us to do when it tells us to fear the Lord but when we fear God as in we’re scared of Him. When we’re intimidated to approach Him because we think He’s mad at us. But God is not mad at you, He is mad for you. He desperately desires to connect with us so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins. Instead of thinking I’m too bad or I’ve gone too far to pray to God, think about how far He went and the drastic measures He took so that we could pray to Him in the first place. Romans 8:1 tells us:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1 ESV)

When we accept Christ into our lives, we are forgiven of our sin. We can then approach God with faith that we are forgiven. And if you haven’t accepted Christ, you can do so right now to receive the forgiveness you need to set your soul free of the guilt and shame that robs us of the opportunity to confidently come to God in prayer.

When we feel guilty, the last thing we need to do is run from God. That is the time we need to run to God to receive the grace and forgiveness our souls desperately need.

God is not this mean God in heaven waiting for us to pray to Him so He can then condemn us. The Bible tells us:

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities.” (Psalm 103:8-10 NKJV)

Merciful, gracious, loving. These are not qualities of what God is like. This is who He is.

When we can address our feelings and align our thoughts with the truth of God about who He is and what He’s done for us, we have no reason not to approach Him in prayer. I want to leave you with Hebrews 4:16 that says:

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV)

I pray that today's video has added some light to the feelings you may have and truth to encourage you to keep praying anyway, so that you are more encouraged to pray boldly no matter how you feel.

Now, I would love to hear from you Beloved! 

We’ve discussed some of the feelings that prevent us from wanting to pray, but what feelings motivate you to pray? Let’s chat in the comments.

Before you go, I want to invite you to download my free 5-day prayer guide so you can put into practice what we’ve learned today about prayer and see how just like breathing, prayer can become a natural life-giving part of your everyday life. Simply click the free resources link in the description of this video. 

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Thank you so much for watching today and until next time, be beautiful, be blessed, and beloved.