In considering the disciplines of the Christian life, that subject which is paramount, and is most awkwardly performed, is undoubtedly prayer. There are certainly multitudes of excellent books and even tapes that tell of the need for and the working out of prayer. In this article, I would like to cover the discipline of prayer from the aspect of difficulties in prayer, and there are many that we could cover. If there is any honesty amongst us, we all have difficulties in prayer. For some of us the difficulties seem so insurmountable, and so entrenched that we have either given up or almost given up in prayer. This then is a subject that all of us can take heed to and find refreshment from.
The Difficulty in General
Prayer is often hard. Sometimes it is impossible. There are many times when the heavens are as brass and the earth is as iron, and it just seems your strength is being spent in vain. At times it seems your prayers don’t even get to the ceiling, let alone get past it! Why? I wish to answer that question more specifically as the article progresses, but in general terms, there are some principles that must first be understood. We must understand that prayer is warfare. We are beset with many enemies. One of the greatest enemies is yourself. Self does not want to pray. It is odious to the flesh to get up early in the morning, get uncomfortably on one’s knees, and talk into the air to someone that you cannot even see, and expect something to happen from such a dreadful waste of time! Self can think (and does remind you!) of so many “better” things you could be doing with this time—like sleeping for instance! Satan and the hosts of hell are also direct adversaries to your praying. If it is true what Cooper wrote, “And Satan trembles when he sees, the weakest saint upon his knees”, and if it is true that Satan will oppose everything that God loves (and God loves it when His people pray), then he will certainly oppose with all his vigor anyone who sets himself to pray. Prayer is hard. Prayer is work. Prayer is battle. There are innumerable distractions. Feelings, slothfulness, and unbelief greatly get in the way. The black night of unanswered prayer closes in with a darkness that can be felt. Aye, prayer is battle. But as this article progresses, I would like to give you some very practical help.
The Difficulty of Condemnation
Sometimes prayer is hard for you. The heavens seem to be as brass, and the earth as iron. You are seemingly getting nowhere, and perhaps this condition has gone on for days or weeks. Either gradually or suddenly the thought is presented that God must be hiding His face from you because of a secret sin in your life. You know that God does not hear sinners, and so you go on under increasing oppression and condemnation, looking for the hidden sin. Your spiritual life will get more and more confused, if you continue to follow this thought pattern. Yes, it is true that sin will block communion with God. But let us be very practical. Any decent earthly father is going to be quite ready to point out any misdoing in the life of a child of his. How much more righteous is God, our heavenly Father? He does not play hide-and-go-seek with His children. If sin has come into your life, the Holy Spirit will be a swift witness of exactly what it is. Satanic condemnation is always vague—he is the accuser of the brethren. Satan operates in hiding things—darkness and shadow. God is specific and offers hope—He shines light. For the open and seeking heart, He will plainly and quickly show any sin.
The Difficulty of Feelings
This is undoubtedly the area where the greatest errors are committed, and where the need is greatest for clear teaching. One of the basic principles of prayer is that when we pray, we are coming to an intelligent Being Who does hear our every desire whether whispered or not, and Who desires our fellowship, friendship and worship through the means of prayer. Although prayer is certainly a two-way exchange of communication and mutual love, we like to try to confine the infinite God to our finite understanding. We expect God to communicate with us according to our preconceived notions. Thus there are times when we go to prayer and find no sensibility of God, no perception of His presence. We become troubled because God is not “hearing” and communicating according to our ideas of how He should. We do not feel God’s presence. Many say, “When I first started walking with the Lord, it was easy to pray. I felt God’s presence near.” Amen! And so it is at times! But consider when you first started after God, you were a baby. God’s grace was enswaddling you and protecting you, and, oh, the feelings were so grand! Should you stay a baby though? God has to put you through special training to toughen you up and teach you to walk by faith and trust Him. Many Christians are fair weather pray-ers. We forget that we are to pray by faith, not by feelings. The promises of God and His divine, omnipotent, omniscient power do not at all depend on how you feel. Jesus never said, “Ask, and if your feelings are right, it shall be given unto you. Seek, only when you are sensible of My presence, and you shall find. Knock when conditions seem right, and the door shall be opened unto you.” We know that this mentality is absolute rubbish, and yet that is the subconscious attitude most of us have towards prayer.
The Difficulty of Discouragement
Faith is the great root of the issue of prayer. If faith is to dry up or receive a mortal sickness, the whole plant of prayer will wither. It is no wonder then that Satan in this warfare tries desperately to undermine faith in prayer. Discouragement is his primary weapon. There are many varieties of discouragements. One of the simplest and most common modes of discouragement is that feeling that you are not getting anywhere. You know the feeling. You are trying to pray, but it just seems your thoughts are wandering, your emotions aren’t really engaged, your prayers are dry and formal. Then the thought comes, “I’m not getting anywhere. I ought to just give up.” On what basis do you believe you are not getting anywhere? On the basis of feelings, of course. Faith knows differently! Faith knows that God Almighty does indeed hear even these distracted prayers, and faith knows that these distractions are a part of the real, practical prayer warfare that every Christian must undergo. So, will you succumb in the hour of warfare? Where do the suggestions come from anyway that you ought to just give up? Does God give out suggestions like that? When any form of discouragement comes in prayer or any suggestion that you ought to just give up, look behind the mask, and you will smell the sulphurous breath of hell. God the Lord encourages you to pray and wants you to pray, even if it seems feeble to you. The grace of prayer is a grace to be improved and learned only by being exercised in it. Don’t expect to know it all overnight. You have many real battles to fight after the manner that the songwriter wrote about:
My flesh is tired of seeking God,
But on my knees I’ll stay.
I want to be a pleasing child,
Until that final day.
My mind is full of many thoughts,
That flutter and confuse.
But standing firm, I will prevail,
In faith that I’ll be used.
The Difficulty of Unanswered Prayer
Discouragement can come in the form of not seeing answers to our prayers, and subtly wondering if prayer really “works.” Again, so much of this problem is in our preconceived ideas of how God should answer a prayer. When we pray we naturally think of several ways that God could answer our prayer, and when the infinite God refuses to be bound by our finiteness, we become discouraged. God does answer, but usually not as we think He will. The wheels of His providence must grind on as He sees fit (Ezekiel 1). And please keep in mind that “no” or “not yet” are just as much answers to prayer as “yes.” So often we cannot see the forest for the trees in the matter of answers to prayer. God almost invariably works by very natural, normal means to bring about answers to prayer. Our faith needs to be built up by knowing the Bible, knowing the God of the Bible, and by prayers that are formed and informed by the promises and revelation of God’s Word. On the mental side, we need to cultivate the grace of perseverance. Perseverance, tenacity, determination, and persistence are rare Christian virtues. These virtues are crucial in fighting the call to “retreat” by “just giving up because you aren’t getting anywhere.” In Luke 18:1-7, in Habakkuk 1, and 2:1-3, in Elijah’s praying for rain on Mt. Carmel, in Jacob’s wrestling, and in so many other promises and examples, we are taught the need of persistence in prayer. God must providentially arrange things for what is best for His kingdom and government. Allow him His time to work, but while waiting, always pray and do not faint. The one who is walking by faith does not need the “sign” of a thrill or a feeling or a voice in order to continue. There is a sure expectation that God has heard my petition and will reveal it all in His time.
The Difficulty of the Thought Life
Certainly our thought life is one of the great arenas of real battle in prayer. We have already discussed the condemnation and discouragement that often come along when one wants to pray. But there are other areas where Satan tries to actively hinder God’s people. Anyone who will pray will face multitudes of distractions both from within and without. It is so amazing how many things you can think of that you need to do when you are in prayer. Why did those things not come up before? Wandering thoughts, telephones ringing, that very important project that clamors for attention now, even the solution to a problem that you have long pondered, these all work together to distract you from prayer. Another trick of Satan is to bring up some vile, obnoxious thought either from your past, or from the air, and then accuse you with, “How can you come to God when you think such vile thoughts?” I remember reading a godly Puritan (Baxter or Rutherford) describing how Satan would come to them in prayer with evil, lustful thoughts that they had never taken part in—all to distract from prayer. Satan has no new tricks! All these objects and many more are to hinder you in prayer and cause you to give up. It requires discipline, but you must simply condition yourself to focus on the “better part” and just push away all such suggestions. If you find your mind has wandered and you do not know what has happened to the last 15 minutes, just start up where you left off and keep on going. A prayer list is an excellent tool to help keep your mind focused.
God is looking for those who will trust and obey, and who will put aside all such satanic thoughts and get to the business of prayer.
The Difficulty of Independence
Finally, there is this very subtle difficulty that keeps us from getting to prayer in the first place. For so many of us, we have not come to the end of ourselves, and we are still very independent and think we can take care of things ourselves. Often, we only need to come to God for really big items, or to have Him put his seal of approval on what we want. Prayer is the language of dependence. Prayer is the language of inability. Prayer is the language of emptiness. Lack of prayer is the opposite—it speaks of my fullness, my ability, and my self-sufficiency. The more we see our need and our inability, the more we will go to God’s infinite storehouse of grace and power and appropriate what we need from Him—in prayer. How do I deal with this? The answer is quite simple but long and difficult in working out. Ask God to break your independence and self-sufficiency. He will do it, but it will be very unpleasant on the flesh, as you start to see things in your life spin out of your control in order to force you to God, and to train you that all you ever needed could be only found in Him anyway!
Conclusion
I would like to try to bring all of these thoughts together by means of a practical, living example. In the early 1800’s, the minister of the Second Congregational Church of Portland, Maine was a man named Edward Payson. He has come down to us with the nickname of “Praying Payson.” In his life, he gave himself uncommonly to fasting and prayer, so that he literally did wear grooves in the wooden floor by his bed from his much praying. He was also someone that God used to bring revival to his church and area! Payson’s journals are marvelous to read, because they show the real-life struggles that we seldom read of in polished biographies. They show that this “prayer warrior” was a struggling soul just like you and I. For your encouragement, here are just a few entries from his journal relating to prayer:
February 26, 1806: I drag along without advancing. O, how disproportionate are my endeavors to the mighty prize for which I contend.
February 28, 1806: Resolved to spend this day in fasting and prayer. Did so, but found no relief. Was astonishingly dead and wandering. In reading Mr. Brainerd’s life, I seemed to feel a most ardent desire after some portion of his spirit; but, when I attempted to pray, it vanished. I could not even mourn over my coldness.
August 4, 1806: Rose with the impression that all I had formerly experienced was a delusion, and that I was still an enemy to God. Was enabled to go to Jesus, and plead earnestly for mercy, not for my own sake, but for His. I seem determined, if I must perish, to perish at His feet; but perhaps I was deceived. However, my hopes began to revive. In the evening, foolishly went into company, and had no time for prayer.
June 17, 1807: Had some life this morning, but was harassed with wandering thoughts. Seemed to myself more vile than any other creature existing.
Such are only a few samples of the reality of those who would battle in prayer. It is not nearly so glamorous nor smooth as many books and seminars would make it to be. In our desire to stir souls up to pray, do we perhaps set up an artificial and unreal image of prayer? Earlier in this article, I had written about the rare Christian grace of perseverance. Payson had that, so that he kept on in prayer no matter how awful the battle was—and some of these journal entries are awful! And, in truth, there are also many entries that tell a completely different picture. God did favor him at times with seasons of refreshment to his soul. And so the Lord will do for all who will call upon Him. Will you call upon him? Will you enlist in this terrible struggle and start pulling down the strongholds of unbelief, walking by feelings, discouragement, and distractions in your prayer life?
