Prayer Exhaustion

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Prayer Exhaustion

by Eddie Turner

There are people around us whose passion in life is talking to God. With wonderfully creative words and vibrant articulation, we call these people prayer warriors. As we listen to their powerful pleas to our King, we are often reminded of our own prayer life, which can be…let’s face it, quite dull in comparison. Lulls in the frequency of our prayers, however, are not always due to us being poor communicators. Sometimes, we just flat-out don’t want to pray.

I have experienced this in my own prayer life. There was a time when I would dive into my Facebook feed each morning in search of prayer requests that I could respond to. Eventually, I found myself skipping over those that I had prayed for already or whose requests I felt were unworthy of my time. This was horrible, I know. But it’s how my flawed human heart reacted to what is often called prayer exhaustion. What I was once eager to do, I had begun to dread.

Here’s an example of how this can happen. For the men, imagine committing to bringing home a red rose for your wife every day. This is a wonderful gesture that I’m sure would earn loads of brownie points—for a while anyway. Now imagine pulling into your driveway and then having to turn around and go back to the store because you forgot to stop on your way home. How happy would you be buying your wife a rose on that day? What if you were hurrying home to see the kick-off of the football game you’ve been excited about all week? Would you be as pleased to stop on your way? These things will happen. And as your heart becomes increasingly unattached, so will your wife’s appreciation for the gesture.

When we treat our prayers like fill-in-the-blank forms and recite the same format over and over, praying becomes unexciting. And the blessings we ask for serve as annoying delays before meals. Despite being a very creative person, I was not injecting any creativity into my prayers. And I rarely talked to God about anything exciting the way I would with others. If this hits home with you, here are a few things you can do to try and shake things up.

1. Tell God about random things that are going on in your life. 2. Tell Him about something He created that you admire. 3. Sing to God one of your favorite praise or worship songs. 4. Ask God to increase your heart’s capacity to love Him and those around you.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. In the Bible, we are told to pray without ceasing and to sing a new song for His glory. Take a moment each day before you sit down to pray and think of something new to talk to God about. As God sees the effort you make, He may lift your spirits and provide you with new opportunities to share your love for Him with others. After all, if we’re not excited to talk to Him, how excited can we be to tell others about Him?