013 - Prayer Habits, Part I

If you’re anything like me, sometimes (though you hate to admit it) your prayers become a bit monotonous.

Chances are, if you’ve been a follower of Jesus for a long time, you’ve learned the phrases and words that easily roll off your tongue when you pray, and now you can recite your common prayers almost without even thinking about it. The truth is, it happens to all of us.

It’s also true that prayer was never meant to be that way. Though for many of us, prayer can easily become an apathetic aspect of our relationship with Jesus that we don’t actually give much thought, the truth is that God desires so much more intentionality and focus from us when we pray.

Which is why, for the next four email issues, we’re going to take a look at some of the habits we’ve developed when we pray - and how we can form new habits to make our prayer time with God more impactful, intimate, and enjoyable.

And here’s the thing: God doesn’t have a perfect definition of prayer. He just wants to connect with us meaningfully and honestly. The goal of this series isn’t to shame you or guilt you into praying the “right” way. The goal is to help us recognize where we’ve gotten a little off-track in the way we pray SO THAT we can course-correct and find more joy and meaning in the time we spend with God in prayer.

Habit #1 - Asking God to be with you.

This one may sound ridiculous, almost sacrilegious. Because from the very beginning of our faith, we were taught to pray for God to be with us. It permeates nearly every prayer we pray, whether we’re going through a season of loneliness or isolation (2020, anyone?) or we’re faced with a difficult decision and we need guidance. It’s what we do - we pray for God to be with us.

Except God is already with us. In fact, He never leaves us. Once we commit our lives to Him, He actually takes up residence in our very souls to guide us and lead us through life. Which means that praying for Him to be with us is like praying for Him to be good or loving or kind. It’s an insult to the character of God to ask Him to be who He’s already promised to be or do things He’s already promised to do, because it implies that He can’t be trusted to keep His word. He doesn’t change, He will always love us, and He will never leave us. We don’t need to ask for His presence; as His children, we’ve already got as much of His presence as we’ll ever need.

And chances are, you’ve never really thought about it that way. But when we pray for God to be with us, we unconsciously tell ourselves that He might not be; that we have to ask for His presence because we might not get it otherwise. And that can actually be really damaging to the way we view and interact with God.

New Habit to Form

I’m trying to get into the habit of asking God to help me feel His presence. To help me remember that He’s with me, especially when it doesn’t feel like He is. To show me where He’s working in my life so that I can lean into where His presence already is.

Asking God to be with us removes any responsibility from our shoulders and puts it solely on God, who has already promised to be with us no matter what. But asking Him to help us feel or remember His presence calls on us to partner with God (which is the very nature of a relationship). His role is being with us and showing us where He is, and our responsibility is to look for Him and remember the promise He’s already made to be with us no matter what.

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Published in the 013 - September 22 issue of TuesdayTribe

Written by Hannah Hladek

Photo by Olivia Snow on Unsplash