Just this past weekend I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of women at Harman Baptist Church in Grundy, Virginia about spiritual disciplines and, in particular, prayer. We called this women’s conference, “Fill My Cup,” knowing the Lord would give us hope as we lift our cup to Him!

The theme verse for the event was …

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Romans 15:13

I shared personal stories and illustrations that drove home some of what I’ve learned over the many years in my faith walk while cultivating spiritual habits.

In future posts, I’ll share some of those principles for igniting and maintaining a daily and ongoing time with God. So stay tuned!

For now, I want to focus on what could be part of the problem if you struggle to make prayer a habit or don’t see God answering your prayers the way you would hope. It could be the motivations behind your prayers are getting in the way. Consider …

8 Ways We Fail at Prayer

1.    We pray for others to change rather than asking God to change our own hearts.

Ever do this? I know I do!

After all, it’s so much easier, it seems, to see the speck of sin in someone else’s eye. The other person’s sin looks as big as a log to us. But that’s because we have a log in OUR eye!

If we want God to open our eyes to our next best steps and the truth of a situation, we need to be willing to let Him do some eye surgery! (Heart surgery, as well!)

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:3-5

2.    We expect God to do too much, too quickly, or both. 

One of the ladies at this conference said this was the hardest part for her when facing a family member’s death. She wanted God to answer and relieve her pain ASAP. But God wanted her and her family to wait on Him.

Why? Let’s look to this verse for some insight …

But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:31

3.    We jump ahead of God by trying to relieve our own pain and/or fix our offender. 

This truth is related to number 2. When we are in pain, our number one goal often becomes finding relief by trying to fix our problem. But there’s a problem with that strategy.

Sometimes God wants us to sit with Him in the pain while He comforts us with His peace that blows our minds.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

God also wants us to surrender our efforts to fix our offender, asking help from Him, the only One who can bring true and lasting healing.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

James 4:1-3

4.    We pray for our feelings to change rather than praying for God to change how much we trust and obey Him.

Our emotions really can get us in trouble, distracting us from our next right faith steps and giving us a false sense of confidence in our own abilities. Instead, we must look to and rely on Jesus, who is the One who fills our minds with His peace.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Isaiah 26:3

Another verse that gives us insight into how to trust God more is …

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1 John 4:1

When we are more concerned with the feelings that are churning in our spirit, we make our feelings an idol. We must test our spirit (in this sense, our feelings) with God’s word. Then we can see the truth that our emotions have overshadowed or obscured.

5.    We pray for our feelings to change rather than asking God to comfort us in our pain.  

There’s those pesky feelings distracting us from God again! Instead of trying to soothe our own pain, let’s turn to the Lord of all comfort for His hope! Paul and his ministry partners knew this secret …

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

2 Corinthians 1:8-10

6.    We avoid prayer because we feel like nothing is going to change rather than praying for God to change us.

Sometimes we can grow so frustrated with God, feeling as if He isn’t responding nor does He care about our plight, that we give up hope. We quit praying altogether. In the famous words of philosopher, Julie Roberts, a.k.a. Pretty Woman, “Big mistake! Huge!!”

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, …

Hebrews 5:7-9

If Jesus had to learn obedience through suffering, then why do we think it should be any different for us?

We must accept that God may not remove our pain or change our situation. Thankfully, He never stops changing us for the better as we learn to trust Him more in every trial and moment of suffering!

7.    We rely on our human desires and wisdom to direct our prayers rather than looking to Scripture to guide or convict us in our prayers.

This problem happens both with prayer and without it. Sometimes, we tell God what we need based on our human wisdom rather than His word. Other times we don’t even tell Him. We just do our own “thang,” and leave Him behind, eating our dust.

Talk about a plan to fail!

Instead, I hope you’ll …

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

8.    We try to understand and analyze our offender before or instead of considering whether we have a faulty view of God that might be distorting how we view or relate to our offender.

This one is about fixating on our offender. Know what that’s called?

Idolatry!

Instead of trying to figure out the reasons the person in your life is causing you pain, let’s learn more about who God is. And, most of all, ask God to reveal Himself to you! When He does, you’ll know more about yourself and your offender than you ever could through observation and psychoanalysis.

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Psalm 46:10

Scan over this list and pick one that you struggle with the most. Ask God to help you overcome this tendency and pattern. Then step back and watch Him work!

Here are a some of the beautiful faces I got to meet at the women’s conference!