"No man is greater than his prayer life." ~ Leonard Ravenhill
A Christian is only as strong as his prayer life. He is dependent upon God for daily grace and mercies, and without prayer he cannot develop an intimate, even simple relationship with God.
That said, one of the things the devil will always try to destroy, stop, or hinder, is our prayer life.
The enemy will do whatever it takes to keep us from turning our computers and TVs off, from putting our cell phones away, and from closing the doors of our rooms to kneel and pray to our Father in heaven. And he does this using everything available in his arsenal, such as temptations, condemnations, accusations, and lies.
How's your prayer life, my friend? If you're honest enough to admit that you're struggling to have a prayer life, then my friend, I'm here to help you.
Here are three things you can and should do if you're struggling with your prayer life.
1) Take away all distractions
There are times when we struggle in our prayer life because we're too focused on unnecessary distractions. Social media, Netflix, smartphone or computer games, and many other things can derail our prayer times.
Uninstall all those games and other apps from your phone. Close that laptop. Turn that TV off. If doing this helps, then you've started to solve your problem.
2) Press into the word of God
You need to have faith to pray. In order to do this, you've got to read more of the word of God. Romans 10:17 tells us that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
Listening to an audio Bible, as well as sermon podcasts from Spirit-filled, Christ-exalting preachers will help in this matter.
3) Pray even when you don't feel like it
At other times, the lack of drive to pray can be caused by something far deeper like a disappointment towards God. "God didn't answer my prayers," you might say. If this is the case, then perhaps you've lost the fire to pray to God.
Push yourself to pray. Praying is a very easy thing to do: you just talk to your Father in heaven. He loves you and listens to you. In fact, before you ever say a word, He already knows it (see Psalm 139:4). He just wants you to come to Him and tell Him what you have to (see Hebrews 4:16).
Who knows, dear friend, maybe God was teaching you something you need to learn. It could be that He is teaching you to ask with the right motives (see James 4:3), ask according to His will (see 1 John 5:14), and persevere in prayer no matter what (see 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
