#prayer is hard

[queerandunresolved]

[thrina-reflection-pool]

Sometimes I'm happy, content, and very emotionally stable.

Other times I'm huddled in a corner wondering why my head is so messed up.

Why cannot I not face life?

If I know God is real, why don't I talk to him?

[communiststhinklikechristians]

When I first became Christian, my spiritual father told me that it was hard to be Orthodox (Christian), and that it was hard to pray. I listened to his words, and remembered them, but they meant nothing to me until recently. How could it be hard for me to be Orthodox Christian when I had been an observant  Jew? I could eat  dinner on fast days, I no longer needed multiple sets of dishes, at no point in the year did I have to literally hunt down and burn every last crumb in my house, I could turn lights on on Saturday, I could tie my shoes in any order and on any day of the week, shopping was so much easier... the list goes on. The Canons of the Church were a much lighter yoke than the 613 commandments of the Torah. This will be difficult? No, I’m Jewish. 

Recently, I realised that I was somehow spiritually disconnected, and began to think back to Judaism. I realised certain things that were missing that I had in Judaism, and found to be deficient in Christianity. Then I realised something worse: The deficiency wasn’t in Christianity, it was in me. 

In Judaism, there are few choices. All of those practices that I was missing are analogous to Christian devotional practices, but they are just that - devotional, votive. In Judaism, those things are required on a legal basis. You must in Judaism. You can in Christianity. And I wasn’t. It wasn’t how my brain was wired for religion. So, I focused on things that had rubrics, but with the wrong spirit. In Judaism, following the must is the right way to do it, because that means (for Judaism) that your heart is in the right place - because you desire to do what you must to follow God’s Law. In Christianity, it’s nearly 100% the intention that matters. 

So, it’s hard to pray, because we make our own prayer rule. It’s hard to be Orthodox, because it’s work. Judaism is a list or requirements. Christianity is a list of choices. Choices are had. 

Now I get it. Praying is hard. Orthodoxy is hard. And it should be. 

[forgiven-and-learning]

My prayer has changed from “God please bring him back” to “God, the desire of my heart is a renewed relationship with him, but if that’s not your will, then please mold my heart to do what you think is best”

[wanderingforgod]

Why Praying Is Hard

People experience difficulty with prayer for three reasons.

1. Our knowledge of God's providence.  We know that God is in charge, not us; therefore we also know that we cannot change what God has decided or decreed.  

2. We know ourselves to be mortal.  We know that we are clay footed, mistake ridden, and just plain bad sometimes.  Therefore we do not believe that we are good enough to be heard by God.  

3. We too often think of prayer as an experiment.  We try it out, and when the results do not live up to our expectations, we give it up.  

Over and over again scripture affirms the necessity of prayer.  "Pray without ceasing."  "Pray constantly."  "Pray earnestly."  Pray with trust, with hope, with expectation.  The point is not whether God hears your prayer, rather it is whether you hear God.