If you spend a few minutes poking around our blog, podcast, YouTube, and social, you’ll see that we have prayer tips galore! We are all about helping you start off a habit of focused prayer time!
But today I wanted to share not specific tips but instead want to hone in on what you need most right now. Maybe you’ve started the habits, read the tips, and are still struggling to make consistent prayer happen!
First, I don’t want you to resolve that this just means powerful prayer time is impossible. It’s a setback but you’ve got your whole life to navigate this prayer journey.
Do not give up now! There is too much goodness that awaits as we experience a deep intimacy with the Lord instead of just resolving that we’ll always feel distant from him.
So whatever has you hitting a wall, let’s talk about it.
Let’s troubleshoot.
IBM defines troubleshooting as “A systematic approach to solving a problem. The goal of troubleshooting is to determine why something does not work as expected and explain how to resolve the problem.”
The rest of the world just knows it as tracing back the problem to figure out a solution.
This concept almost feels too small to address, but I know this reverse-engineering idea of working backward always helps me get unstuck when I’m not sure what to do.
So we’re going to start with the issue in mind so you can address the specific problem you’re facing.
It’s easy for us to offer solutions for problems that aren’t the actual problem for you. It might be good info but what will really help you find consistent and confident prayer time this week?
To help us know where to start, over the next week, set a time to pray. Plan for the best-case scenario of prayer for your day. When does it happen? What do you want it to look like?
And instead of forcing it to happen to get a gold star for the week or feeling shame that it totally didn’t happen, simply take in data on why it’s not happening.
Where is the breakdown occurring?
Did you plan to wake up before the kids, but you overslept?
You may need help planning a good nightly routine.
Did you actually sit down only to not know what to say?
You may need a book of prayers. (Springboard Prayers will be back mid-May so sign up here to be notified when it’s back in stock) Other recs for books on prayer, I share here.
Is there simply too much noise?
Get some earplugs. Seriously.
Do you have internal doubts, like does God even care? What about how he said no the last time?
Grab Pray Confidently and Consistently. It covers 15 common obstacles that our community has shared over the years.
Do you fall asleep as soon as you start to pray?
GET UP. Plan prayer walks. Pray while you stretch. Journal.
Did you feel intimidated praying with others?
Meet with one other trusted friend regularly where you feel safe to grow in praying out loud with others.
This is just to get you thinking but you may have a very specific issue. Experiment with this and each day if prayer didn’t happen, take note of why. Jot down anything that comes to mind. Some things may not really be the cause but seeing it all on paper may help to flesh it out.
And then?
Commit to changing something. We can’t wish a prayer life to happen. We can actually pray for God to give us a deeper passion for Him so it’s really not all on us. But we can make positive changes happen as we decide to troubleshoot and respond to issues instead of assuming that’s just how it will always be.
This is a short post because I’d honestly love to hear from you guys. What did you discover after a week of troubleshooting? Come back and share in the comments. I know it will be encouraging!!
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