Speaker 1: Life Audio.
Speaker 2: Teach Us to Praise brought to you by Life Audio
Speaker 2: and is a part of our Faith Toolkit series. For
Speaker 2: more inspirational faith affirming podcasts, visit lifeaudio dot com.
Speaker 3: Sometimes prayer can be easy and comforting. Other times prayer
Speaker 3: can feel like.
Speaker 1: Talking to a brick wall.
Speaker 3: Why is it that sometimes it's easier to pray than others.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be answering that question in today's episode
Speaker 3: and how to overcome the challenges that make praying so
Speaker 3: hard sometimes.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned, Welcome back, friend.
Speaker 3: You are listening to the Teacher Us to Pray podcast,
Speaker 3: where we teach believers practical and real life tips on
Speaker 3: how to grow your faith and relationship with.
Speaker 1: God through the power of prayer.
Speaker 3: I'm Christina Patterson, host of the Teach Just to Prayer
Speaker 3: podcast and founder of Beloved Women, where I have the
Speaker 3: honor to encourage, equip and empower women all over the
Speaker 3: world in the love of Jesus Christ and the.
Speaker 1: Truth of God's Word.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I will have these seasons where I just thoroughly
Speaker 3: enjoy praying, and honestly, this is most of the time
Speaker 3: because it is the one time during the day where
Speaker 3: I can just cast my cares on God and know
Speaker 3: that he hears me.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded that I'm not alone.
Speaker 3: And it's then that prayer brings much comfort and healing
Speaker 3: and restoration to my soul, which is much of the
Speaker 3: purpose of prayer for us to connect with God, to
Speaker 3: refill our souls with Him. But if I'm honest with you,
Speaker 3: there are times where prayer isn't that easy, where it
Speaker 3: feels like a real struggle. It can cause me anxiety
Speaker 3: sometimes when I go through these seasons and I just
Speaker 3: don't feel like God's there, or I don't feel like
Speaker 3: I'm praying right and it just doesn't feel the same.
Speaker 3: I wonder if you've ever experienced that before, or maybe
Speaker 3: you're experiencing that right now in your own prayer life.
Speaker 3: Prayer is such a gift for believers to connect with
Speaker 3: the God of the universe, the God that created us.
Speaker 1: However, I have.
Speaker 3: Experienced firsthand that prayer isn't always easy, and so I
Speaker 3: want to chat with you about a few reasons why
Speaker 3: you may be finding prayer to be particularly hard in
Speaker 3: this season of your life, and how to overcome those challenges. First,
Speaker 3: we have to understand that prayer is a practice and
Speaker 3: This is why it's not always easy to do. It's
Speaker 3: something that has to be learned. We aren't just born
Speaker 3: with this innate gift to pray, not most of us,
Speaker 3: not me at least, and so it's something.
Speaker 1: That we have to get used to doing.
Speaker 3: If you are new to the faith or you are
Speaker 3: new to the practice of prayer, it's not gonna always
Speaker 3: be smooth, especially when you are just getting started. And
Speaker 3: if you think about it, that goes for any practice
Speaker 3: that you try to learn or implement in your life.
Speaker 3: If you're just learning how to play basketball, you're not
Speaker 3: gonna automatically know how to dribble. You're gonna need someone
Speaker 3: to teach you how to do it. And then guess
Speaker 3: what you're gonna have to do. You are going to
Speaker 3: have to practice.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: In the Book of Philippians, the apostle Paul tells the
Speaker 3: church in Philippi to instead of worrying.
Speaker 1: To pray.
Speaker 3: He tells him to pray about everything. But then at
Speaker 3: the end of his letter, know what he says. He says,
Speaker 3: put these things into practice. What that means is he
Speaker 3: didn't expect them to get everything right off of the
Speaker 3: first try. He's saying I just want you to keep
Speaker 3: trying and keep practicing, because that is how you get better.
Speaker 3: So sometimes prayer is challenging just because we don't do it.
Speaker 3: Often it's challenging because we're just getting started, and I
Speaker 3: know that that can be so frustrating. I deal with
Speaker 3: this with my kids oftentimes, whenever they are learning something new,
Speaker 3: they just want to be experts at it from the
Speaker 3: get go. They want to automatically know how to do
Speaker 3: something well. And I find myself constantly reminding them, listen,
Speaker 3: you're just learning this. You're gonna make mistakes. It's gonna
Speaker 3: be challenging if there are gonna be some bumps in
Speaker 3: the road, and that's how this is supposed to go,
Speaker 3: so that you can learn from those mistakes so that
Speaker 3: you can then get better. Your prayer life with God
Speaker 3: is going to be similar. It's going to take practice.
Speaker 3: It takes practice to know how to pray and what
Speaker 3: things that you feel comfortable saying and what things you
Speaker 3: can say. And it takes practice to also hear from
Speaker 3: God and know that He hears you when you pray.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons why we have this entire podcast.
Speaker 3: If you are new to the podcast, I want to
Speaker 3: encourage you to go back and listen to some previous episodes,
Speaker 3: because we have some great episodes where we teach you
Speaker 3: not only how to pray, but different prayer practice, how
Speaker 3: to hear from God, and all of these things that
Speaker 3: you can implement as you put into practice prayer. The
Speaker 3: second challenge that we often face when it comes to
Speaker 3: praying and why we feel like prayer can be such
Speaker 3: a struggle and so hard sometimes is that we don't
Speaker 3: like silence.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: I know that I've said many times on this podcast
Speaker 3: that prayer is our conversation.
Speaker 1: With God, and it very much is. Now.
Speaker 3: When we think of conversation, we think of one person
Speaker 3: talking and then another person talking, and it is this
Speaker 3: continuous flow of back and forth conversation. Even if you
Speaker 3: think about it, when you're talking to someone and then
Speaker 3: there's a moment of silence where neither of you has
Speaker 3: anything to say, it can feel kind of awkward, can it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes we feel that same awkwardness in our prayer life
Speaker 3: with God when it feels like things are silent, and honestly,
Speaker 3: it might just be a natural pause in the conversation
Speaker 3: to hold the moment, to remember the last thing that
Speaker 3: he spoke to you again. I have another episode, it's
Speaker 3: episode thirty six to be exact, that teaches you how
Speaker 3: to pray when you feel like God is silent, because
Speaker 3: it is natural to feel that way sometimes and to
Speaker 3: understand that that doesn't mean that God's not there. It
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that he doesn't hear you. So it's a
Speaker 3: natural thing for God to sometimes feel silent or actually
Speaker 3: be silent in our prayer lives. This is challenging for us, however,
Speaker 3: because we're not comfortable with silence. We let our minds
Speaker 3: run and we assume the worst when there're this moment
Speaker 3: of silence as something's bad, or God's mad at us,
Speaker 3: or and it's none of that.
Speaker 1: It's none of that. Sometimes many times we need that silence.
Speaker 3: In my interview with Patrice Burrell, she talked about practicing
Speaker 3: moments of silent prayer and this practice of sitting before
Speaker 3: the Lord in silence and not talking, not necessarily expecting
Speaker 3: to hear anything, but just truly embracing and enjoying his presence,
Speaker 3: because that is also a prayer practice, to just be still.
Speaker 3: We live in such a loud society. There is noise everywhere,
Speaker 3: and one thing that we don't often realize is that
Speaker 3: our souls desperately need moments of stillness and silence. And
Speaker 3: I believe that sometimes that's why when we come to
Speaker 3: God to pray, we don't hear anything. It's not because
Speaker 3: he's mad at us. It's because he's giving our souls
Speaker 3: something that our souls rarely receive, the beauty of resting
Speaker 3: in silence and solitude. There's something about being still and
Speaker 3: silence that fills our souls like nothing else. And I
Speaker 3: think that God calls us to those moments sometimes, but
Speaker 3: we become afraid, and so then we start talking and
Speaker 3: moving and making something up to do because we're uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: But we should really embrace those moments. Think about Psalm
Speaker 3: twenty three, where the psalmist says that the Lord leads
Speaker 3: him beside still waters to what to then restore his soul.
Speaker 3: Prayer is hard because sometimes it feels uncomfortable, but it's
Speaker 3: in those uncomfortable moments we need to rest in God's
Speaker 3: presence and know that He's just trying.
Speaker 1: To restore our souls.
Speaker 3: The third reason why sometimes prayer can be so challenging
Speaker 3: and hard is we might have some sin in our lives.
Speaker 3: And this is where prayer comes in really helpful, because
Speaker 3: then we can repent of that sin in our prayer life,
Speaker 3: we can turn from it and then approach the Lord
Speaker 3: with confidence. And I want to note here that repentance
Speaker 3: is a process, a gift that we have, not to
Speaker 3: demn us and make us to feel bad, but it
Speaker 3: is a freeing practice that we can participate in when
Speaker 3: we pray to God to release our sin to him,
Speaker 3: to confess our sin to him so that we can
Speaker 3: receive his forgiveness, so that we can then come to
Speaker 3: Him confidently. This is the entire reason why Jesus died
Speaker 3: on the cross for our sins, not for us to
Speaker 3: sit back and just feel bad about all the wrong
Speaker 3: that we've done and feel like we can't come to God.
Speaker 1: Jesus died so that we could come to God.
Speaker 3: If there is sin in your life, that is what
Speaker 3: Jesus came to save you from. It does not have
Speaker 3: to separate you from God anymore if we would have
Speaker 3: hearts to come to God in prayer and repentance and
Speaker 3: let him turn our lives around. The next reason why
Speaker 3: prayer can be so hard sometimes is because the enemy
Speaker 3: will strategically attack us in our prayer lives. He does
Speaker 3: this because he knows that prayer is the way that
Speaker 3: we can defeat him. It is a spiritual practice that
Speaker 3: gives us spiritual victory. Ephesian six tells us that our
Speaker 3: battle isn't against flesh and blood. It's a very much
Speaker 3: a spiritual battle that we're all in. And guess what
Speaker 3: prayer is. It's spiritual. It is a spiritual weapon that
Speaker 3: the Lord has given us. So one thing that the
Speaker 3: enemy is going to do to us is attack us
Speaker 3: in our prayer lives. Whenever you think of any kind
Speaker 3: of battle between two enemies, one thing that your enemy
Speaker 3: is going to want to do is cut lines of
Speaker 3: communication with your allies, because then you can call for help.
Speaker 3: The enemy of our souls thinks very much like this.
Speaker 3: If he can stop us from praying, he can cut
Speaker 3: off the source of our victory against him. Maybe he's
Speaker 3: attacking you with distracting thoughts. Maybe you feel anxious when
Speaker 3: you start to pray. Maybe you start thinking about past
Speaker 3: mistakes and all these bad thoughts come into your mind,
Speaker 3: or you just can't focus, or you keep falling asleep.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, whatever tactic.
Speaker 3: The enemy is using this stop you from praying. I
Speaker 3: want you to pray about that too. When you start
Speaker 3: to pray, say Lord, I feel like I'm under attack.
Speaker 3: Please clear my mind so that I can connect with
Speaker 3: you in this moment.
Speaker 1: Pray about your prayer.
Speaker 3: The Bible tells us to pray about everything, so we
Speaker 3: should pray about anything, even when it comes to how
Speaker 3: we pray to God.
Speaker 1: That we need help even in our prayers.
Speaker 3: Please believe this is something that God desperately wants to
Speaker 3: help us with. He wants us to pray to him.
Speaker 3: He's opened the door for us to pray to him,
Speaker 3: so He's surely going to help us in this area
Speaker 3: as well, so that we can be victoria in all
Speaker 3: areas of our lives. Did you know that God made
Speaker 3: us all beautifully different, even in the way that we pray.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: Your prayer personality is the unique way you are most
Speaker 3: likely to communicate with God, and knowing which of the
Speaker 3: three prayer personality types you have can equip you to
Speaker 3: hear from God more clearly and overcome any obstacles to
Speaker 3: your communication with Him. I invite you to take my
Speaker 3: prayer personality quiz to learn how you best hear from God,
Speaker 3: how you most likely connect with Him in prayer, and
Speaker 3: just to have a little fun, take the quiz now
Speaker 3: at prayquiz dot com or find the link in the
Speaker 3: show notes.
Speaker 1: For today's show.
Speaker 3: It is my hope that today's episode has provided you
Speaker 3: with insightful and helpful tips on how you can pray.
Speaker 1: We have so much more to talk about when it
Speaker 1: comes to prayer.
Speaker 3: So I hope that if you were encouraged by today's episode,
Speaker 3: you will share it with a friend and subscribe so
Speaker 3: you don't miss any future episodes of the Teach Us
Speaker 3: to Pray podcast, where we will continue to learn how
Speaker 3: just breathing prayer can become a natural, consistent, and life
Speaker 3: giving part of our everyday lives. Until then, be sure
Speaker 3: to connect with me at Belovedwomen dot org and join
Speaker 3: me on the Beloved Women at for unlimited videos to
Speaker 3: grow your faith, learn God's word, and encourage your soul.
Speaker 3: Available now in the Apple and Google play stores or
Speaker 3: at Beloved Women dot tv. Thank you so much for
Speaker 3: taking time to listen today. God bless you and I'll
Speaker 3: talk to you in the next episode. Teach Us to
Speaker 3: Pray is a production of Life audio and Salem Media.
Speaker 3: If you like what you heard today, please take a
Speaker 3: second to rate and review this podcast in your favorite
Speaker 3: podcast staff so that more listeners like you can find
Speaker 3: the show. For more faith filled, inspirational podcasts, visit us
Speaker 3: at lifeaudio dot com.