Why do we make prayer so hard?

There are literally hundreds of books written on prayer and how to pray. Lots of people spend more time reading about prayer than time actually praying. Why do you suppose that is? The people buying these books obviously see prayer as a value but find it difficult.

On a past retreat I received an insight on this matter of prayer and why we value it while at same time we seem to avoid it. A reason could be that many of us still operate out of the Greek understanding of life split into body and soul. We tend to divide our lives into two categories, spiritual life and our normal life. We see our spiritual life as separate from our everyday life and fail to integrate both parts of ourselves. We “work on” our prayer life as if it were divorced from the rest of our life.

Having said that, let’s ask ourselves how we define prayer. What is our routine? Is prayer saying the daily rosary or rattling off our favorite prayers over and over? Is prayer for us reading the Bible or other spiritual books? What is our normal ritual? Do we try to sit or kneel down for a certain amount of time and struggle to chase all thoughts, other than God, from our minds? 

Do we see prayer mostly as an obligation or “putting in our time” with God? Imagine a woman who gives her husband 15 minutes a day. During this time she reads the same stuff to him. When she is finished she doesn’t think about him again until the next 15-minute “appointment.” Their relationship would soon become boring and unfulfilled.

I think this often happens in our relationship with God. We try to carve out some time for him, successfully or unsuccessfully, during our day and then often do not think about God again until we are in church or at our next prayer period.

Prayer is meant to nourish our relationship with God and not be limited to a time or place. Think of how we nurture our other relationships. One thing I am quite sure of is that very few of us talk to our friends with canned, already composed words.

To develop a good relationship with someone we must spend time with that person and share about our lives, our joy and pain, our hopes and dreams. We talk about what is happening in each one’s life, and our thought of that other person is not limited to our physical presence together.

Why should our relationship with God be that much different? Why do we try all kinds of prayer methods? Somehow we often look at the saints and measure our prayer by theirs. We often fail to recognize that that much of their prayer was basic conversation with God. They simply, but profoundly, made God the center of their lives.

Often our prayer becomes monotonous or boring so we give up. It doesn’t have to be that way. I think that the best thing each of us can do to deepen our own relationship with God is to set a realistic amount of time for prayer each day and use it to share with God the ordinariness of our lives, including our thoughts and feelings. It is our time to be real with God. We can learn and do meditation, centering prayer, etc., but we should never neglect this regular conversation with God. And don’t forget, it is okay to talk to God at other times during the day.  Pretend you are calling him on your cell phone.

Did you enjoy this article? If so, browse our “Living the Faith” archive to read some of Sister Margie’s past reflections.