Sermons
Why Do We Struggle to Pray?
Why Do We Struggle To Pray?
Introduction: There was a church that would survey it’s members every year, at the end of the year. They would ask, “where are you struggling,” “what do you need help with,” “what would you like us to do more teaching on?” And without fail, every year there were those who said they needed help with their prayer life. They struggled in having a meaningful habit of prayer. It seems to be a common problem among brethren. I know I struggle to pray as I ought.
Don’t you think that it is an odd thing that so many of us struggle to pray. Think about it, the God of heaven has said that all we have to do is turn our thoughts to Him (we can say the words or we can just think them) and He has promised that He will listen.
Psalm 34:15-18 Think about what the Lord tells us here. God’s ears are open to our cries. All I have to do is call out to the God of heaven, and as He has promised He will attend to my prayers. He will listen. Verse 17 says, “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears.” But that is not all this verse says. It also says, “And delivers them out of all their troubles.” God not only promises “when you talk to Me I will listen,” but He also says, “I will help you.” He promises to act in response to our prayers. He promises to work in my life and help me in whatever it is that troubles me. Prayer is a mechanism of accessing the power and the work of God in my life.
I say again, isn’t it odd that we struggle to pray? You would think that prayer would be a habit that every disciple would enthusiastically embrace. And yet rather than counting prayer as this wonderful blessing, it becomes one of those things that we have to make ourselves do, and when we do neglect it (we go a whole day without prayer) we feel guilty. What has been provided as a blessing becomes a source of frustration.
Why do we struggle to pray? This is the focus of our lesson today.
Consider some answers people give to this question:
I. “I am just too busy.”
A. Maybe this was what you were thinking concerning yourself when I first posed the question.
Maybe you were thinking, “it is hard to find the time.” Not that you are justifying yourself, but
this is a part of your struggle.
B. You have your jobs that require 40 to 60 hours a week. And when you get off from work you have
to transport the kids from this school function to another. Or you have house work and yard work
that has to be done. And after all that is done you are so dead tired, you can hardly think, and you
are ready to go to bed.
C. What we need in order to have meaningful time with God is time to do it and solitude.
Jesus understood the need for time and solitude. Luke 5:15-16
“15 However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes
came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. 16 So He Himself often
withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”
1. Jesus was very busy. John 21:25
“And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I
suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
2. Even though Jesus’ time was in great demand, He made the time to withdraw into the
wilderness and pray. He did this often (on a regular basis). He found time and solitude.
D. Will any of us say “I am busier than the Lord was.” If the Lord could fine time and solitude for
regular prayer, surely, we can.
E. But when we say we are so busy to find time to pray, I wonder if that is really the problem.
I don’t think so. When you get a call that your son has been in an automobile accident and he is
being transported by ambulance to a hospital in St. Louis. You’re having to find accommodations
for your other children, make phone calls, pack up some stuff for your trip to St. Louis, but in all
that craziness, don’t you find time to pray? We are not too busy then!
F. So when we say we are too busy, have we really identified the problem? Or is it something else?
II. “I just don’t know what to say.”
A. This is a challenge for people who are new Christians. Especially if they have come from a non-
religious background. Here you are talking to a God you cannot see, and who will not answer
back, at least not audibly, that can make it difficult to know exactly how to do it, if you haven’t
done it before. Luke 11:1
B. But those who have been Christians for some time may also find it difficult to know what to say,
and you find yourself saying the same things over and over again. You begin to pray by rote and
don’t even remember what you have said in the prayer. We end up just going through the
motions, checking prayer off our list, rather than really talking to God. We think, how should I do
this?
C. Well, struggling for the right words may be a problem at times, but I will tell you, brothers and
sisters there are times when we don’t struggle at all. When the storm is raging outside and the
sirens are sounding informing us that a tornado is on the ground, and the weather man says it is on
the ground just west of St. James headed in our direction and it’s time to go to the basement, we
don’t say, “I would like to talk to God about this but I don’t know if I can find the right words.”
No, we know exactly what to say, don’t we.
D. Is it really that we don’t know what to say? Maybe it is something else.
III. “I feel unworthy.”
A. This is an interesting one because, it is true, not everyone who calls out to God has the right to
expect God to hear him. God does not hear and respond to all prayers.
1. If I have turn my back on God and chosen the path of sin in my life, the scripture makes it clear
that I don’t have the right to expect that God will hear and respond when I cry out to Him.
a. Psalm 34:15-16 “15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to
their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, To cut off the
remembrance of them from the earth.”
b. Psalm 66:16-20 “16 Come and hear, all you who fear God, And I will declare what He
has done for my soul. 17 I cried to Him with my mouth, And He was extolled with my
tongue. 18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear. 19 But certainly God
has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, Who has not
turned away my prayer, Nor His mercy from me!”
c. Isaiah 59:1-2 “1 Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His
ear heavy, That it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.”
B. This is not a popular teaching. It is more popular to says, “You, whoever you are, just call on God
whenever you need Him and He will be there for you.” The Bible doesn’t teach this.
C. But sin is not always the problem with those who have this feeling of unworthiness. There are
even those who are doing their best to be what God wants them to be, but they still feel unworthy
to pray. What they need is faith, believing that God forgives and that we are in fellowship with
Him, and He wants us to pour our hearts out to Him.
1. They may recognize their littleness toward God, like the Psalmist in Psalm 8:3-4.
“3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars,
which You have ordained, 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man
that You visit him?” Why would God want to listen to me? Who am I?
2. This feeling is understandable, and yet note what the Psalmist said in verses 5-6.
“5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with
glory and honor. 6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,”
We may feel that we are nothing before God, and wonder why He would care about us, but
He does care about us.
D. While it is appropriate to have a sense of our littleness before God, we must also appreciate that
we are nonetheless special to Him. And so He would say to us in Philippians 4:6,
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let
your requests be made known to God.”
He would say in 1 Thess. 5:17, “pray without ceasing.”
E. But is our feeling of unworthiness really the problem? Our feeling of unworthiness may
sometimes hinder us, but I will tell you there are other times that it doesn’t hold us back at all.
When you get the word from your daughter’s eye doctor that her optic nerve is bulging indicating
that there is some pressure in the brain causing it, and they don’t know what is causing that
pressure, I don’t know too many parents who are Christians who would say, “I sure would like to
talk to God about this, but I just don’t feel worthy.” Or “I would like to call upon God about this
problem, but I just don’t know what to say,” Or “I wish I had time to pray about this.” No one
says that at such a time.
F. Have we got to the real core of the problem yet? Why don’t we pray? Why does prayer come
natural at the time of crisis, but at other times it is such a battle?
Maybe the real heart of our struggle is:
IV. “I don’t need God.”
A. If we stated the real reason we don’t pray, don’t you think this is what we would say? Now, if I
had said this at the beginning of the lesson, you probably would not believe me. But let us think
about that.
B. What do we feel at those moments of crises, a sick child, an approaching storm, your loved one has
just been in an automobile accident?
1. We feel fear. Yes, but that is not all.
2. We have a sense of helplessness. I have confronted something that I cannot control. That
tornado is moving in your direction and you have that feeling that you are powerless to move
it. You can’t do anything about it.
3. And at that time we have those awful fears and that sense that we can’t do anything about it, we
instinctively turn to the One who can. We pray.
C. The problem is that most of us don’t live our lives in the middle of a crisis. Most of us don’t live
every day with the fear that some devastating problem beyond our control is going to destroy our
lives.
1. We don’t usually worry about whether or not we are going to eat today.
2. We don’t worry about where we are going to sleep tonight.
3. We are blessed to have all our needs supplied, and many of our wants.
4. I’m not saying this is bad. Nothing wrong with this. But we must understand that these are
blessings from God. We must give Him the thanks and the glory.
D. BUT these blessings can leave us feeling self-made, self-supplied (I worked for it), and self-
sufficient, and less dependent on God. I have what I have because of what I have done, I don’t
need God. Therefore, why pray.
E. Let me be plain, one of the essential elements of a meaningful prayer habit is a proper sense of how
much I need God, all the time, every hour.
1. In the song Abide With Me: 3rd verse: “I need Thy presence every passing hour, What but
Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power? Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Thru clouds and sunshine, O, abide with me!”
2. Jesus constantly talked to the Father while He was here on earth. Jesus had a relationship with
Him. We must understand and well establish in our minds that we have a relationship with
God – He is our Father, we are His children, and we need Him.
If Jesus saw the need to talk to God regularly, what about us? Col. 4:2; 1 Thess. 5:17
F. I need God every day because every day I must:
1. Battle The Devil
a. 1 Peter 5:8; Eph. 6:10-12
b. How much would you be praying if you knew someone with a gun was after you? You
knew he was out there after you, hunting for you, but you didn’t know when he was going
to show up. How vigilant would you be? How prayerful would you be? Would you be
praying every day if someone was after you like that?
