Prayer is an important part of your spiritual growth and communion with the Lord. As with any discipline, however, it can get boring and mundane, allowing you to go through the motions rather than encounter an intimate moment with the Savior. While everyone experiences dry times when they're not hearing from God, if you find you have experienced several months where your prayer time has become perfunctory or superficial, it may be time to change things up a bit.
Here are five signs your prayer life has dwindled:
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You may devote time in your day to talk to God, submit your requests, and tell him your personal problems, but when is the last time you heard from him? Do you hear from God regularly? A key ingredient to any vibrant prayer life is not only speaking to God but hearing from him as well. The more we hear from him and are obedient to what we hear, the more our God will entrust us with what he wants to say to us.
For the next week, instead of simply talking to God, ask him this question: “What do you have to say to me today?” Sit in silence until you get an answer. If your schedule does not permit this, set a timer on your phone for what time you can allow. It can be as long as a half hour or as short as five minutes. Make this a daily habit. Write down any thoughts that come to your mind. Test them against Scripture. Are these thoughts lies from the enemy? Or are they in line with the truth of God's Word? The more thoughts you get in the truth of God's Word, the more you will know you are hearing from God.
When doing this, however, it may be tempting to make this part of your to-do list rather than simply being with God. The most important thing God wants from us is our hearts. He wants us to be with him simply because we want to be with him, not for what he gives us or what he can do for us. God is not a genie in a bottle. He is not a vending machine where we simply put in a quarter and get a reward. He wants us to devote our entire lives to him, including our time. Make peace with the fact he may not speak to you every day. He may also not speak to you for several days. But when he does, it will invigorate your prayer life like never before.
If you find after several days in a row you have not heard from God, ask him this question, “Are there any sins in my life that may be prohibiting me from hearing from you today?” God never wants us to be stuck in our sins but promises us freedom through his Son. He will certainly speak to us when it comes to sin patterns that need to be confessed and forgiven. When those sins come to mind, confess them out loud and ask for his help to repent of this behavior. This may be the catalyst that gets you unstuck in your prayer life.
While prayer and Scripture reading are an important part of a person's spiritual life, there are additional disciplines that you can practice linked with prayer. For example, Jesus “went up to lonely places to pray” (Luke 6:12-13). Do you practice silence and solitude like Jesus? Although silence and solitude are difficult to come by these days, make a point to find a place either in or outside your home to practice a time of silence, focusing only on God. Put away the phone, unplug for the day, and just listen for the voice of God. This will also help in your daily practice of listening to God as you dedicate your time to hearing from him.
God does not have an agenda when it comes to his fellowship with us. He only wants to be with us, and he wants us to want to be with him. But when you are experiencing a dry time in your prayer life, it becomes more important to check it off your to-do list rather than commune with him in an intimate way. If you must, take a break from praying for a few days and then come back to it. If you find you miss it after a few days, you know that it's an important part of your life. If you find it was simply a part of your accomplishments to check off for the day, you may want to reevaluate why you're praying in the first place.
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When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he started like this, “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name..." (Matthew 6:9-13). Our prayer should always start in adoration of who God is. It should never be a quick time of only asking him for things like Santa Claus. If you are having trouble with this, dedicate your prayer time for the next week to merely praising God. You may want to listen to worship music to prepare your time of prayer. Speak out all the names of God that you know. Thank him for all the ways he has fulfilled those names in your life. End your time by merely thanking him for being Emmanuel, God with us, lowering himself to have fellowship with us. This is an excellent lesson in humility and keeps our focus on the reality that we can speak to a powerful, almighty God who created the earth, raises the dead, and gives us new life and new mercies each day.
When you aren't experiencing God to the fullest in your prayer time, it is easy to replace prayer with more work or checking other things off your daily list. If you have not prayed to God in a long time, fast from something else in your life and replace it with prayer. Scripture tells us to pray without ceasing, meaning we do not merely have to stop when our half-hour of quiet time is over. We can pray to God throughout the day in little spurts rather than dedicating a whole chunk of time. You may need to take this baby step to get yourself re-acclimated with prayer. Shut off your phone for a week, take a fast, or some other fast to get you re-aligned with your main purpose, which is to glorify God. God will not be upset with you simply because you've missed a few weeks or months of prayer. God, in his great patience, waits for us to return to him. God wants to be a part of our lives, and he loves us with an everlasting love despite what we do or don't do.
Prayer time can be one of the most vibrant ways to commune with God. If you find your prayer time growing stale, try one of these suggestions to get yourself back on track. Don't get caught up in the quantity of your prayer time but rather the quality of it. In so doing, you will not only grow in your spiritual life but also experience God in new and exciting ways.