Tuesday 21 October 2014

Why is Prayer so Difficult?



Every Christian I know affirms three things about prayer...
  • It is Important
  • We don’t do enough of it – personally, corporately or any other way
  • We are going to try to get better at it

Every church I know or ever been associated with would acknowledge that prayer’s important, yet the prayer meeting is the worst attended meeting of the week.  That's almost universally true.  Something’s not quite right – somewhere between theory and practice there is a disconnect, a breakdown between what we say/think is important and what we actually do.  Somewhere in my life and your life this strange process takes place – a massive gulf between belief and behaviour.  We know prayer changes things, makes a difference and affects people and circumstances as God works in answer. Yet, strangely we don’t really do that which we affirm is important - it becomes difficult, awkward, sidelined, uninteresting and forgotten about.  How come?


Maybe there is something in that. Maybe the reason why it is so difficult, is precisely because it is so important.  Our enemy doesn’t want us to do it – so in his subtle way, he distracts us, keeps us busy and sidelines us from the key task.  Maybe if we did less and prayed more, greater things would happen. Families transformed, communities transformed, churches transformed, societies transformed, workplaces transformed by the power of God in answer to believing prayer.  If you find yourself agreeing to that statement, then stop right now and go and pray.  Praying for the next few minutes is far more important than reading the rest of this blog.  Go on....well?? 

But still we don’t do it – not really.  We need to change something.  Stop being a hypocrite. Either stop pretending it’s important – change our belief – or start practicing it in reality – change our behavior.  Well, what do you think? Send me your comments or better still – see you at the next prayer meeting!