Like all the good things in life, prayer demands sacrifice and effort. Difficulties and temptations are inevitable and will intend to move us further away from God’s path; they will come to us specially when are willing to start a serious and deep life of prayer. These are some of the most common difficulties and temptations:

1. - MISTAKEN CONCEPTS ABOUT PRAYER

• To think that prayer is only a psychological operation. That is, to believe that praying is: “Having positive thoughts”, many people think that praying is filling my life with this kind of thoughts which will help my life to be “good”. This is not what Christian prayer means because we believe in prayer for faith, not because of a psychic conviction.

• To believe that prayer is a concentration effort to achieve a mental emptiness. People that believe in oriental philosophies tend to believe that it is necessary to put your mind in blank in order to be able to pray, but this belongs more to Buddhism than Christianity. That is why it is not considered a Christian way of praying.

• To think that praying is only an attitude or ritual words. It is a mistake to think that repeating prayers made by others means that we are praying, it is not that way, even prayers like the Eucharist or the Rosary, without consciousness are ineffective rites to communicate with God.

• To Depend on the state of mood. This is something like saying: “I only pray when I feel it in my heart”, in fact, praying does not depend on us it is because God is God and He deserves everything.

• Depending on the circumstances. That is when I have time, when I feel like it, then maybe I can pray, or the other extreme, I only pray when I need something from God. Praying does not depend on what happens around me.


2. – DISTRACTIONS

Whenever we decide to pray, it seems as though all the things we stopped doing demanded our attention. Maybe we could avoid many distractions if we perceived the difference between the time to be with God and the time to be with ourselves.

Distractions may be external things like noises or something from inside like thoughts, images or memories.

The remedy to eliminate distractions is very simple, we only have to let them go by and ignore them, if we do not do this we will not be able to pray.

3. - DRYNESS OR ARIDNESS IN CHRISTIAN LIFE

It is the impotence or unwillingness to produce intellective or affective acts in prayer. This impotence is so big some times that it becomes very difficult to pray. Some times it affects the spirit, others, it affects only the heart. The worst kind is when it seems as if God had gone away from our soul.

Spiritual dryness includes the fact of not finding any joy in praying or not feeling God when we pray. All kinds of dryness are uncomfortable for the soul, but this can be used by God to increase our faith. Let’s remember, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8, 28). It must be remarked that spiritual dryness is part of Christian life and is a test for the soul, the only way to overcome it is praying and not letting that laziness or the lack of mood win.

Causes are varied, bad state of physical health, body fatigue, excessive or absorbing occupations, annoying temptations that disturb the soul; lack of education to pray in a convenient way, venial sins, etc.

Some other times they constitute a test from God to prepare our soul so that it grows within the spiritual life.

4. - LACK OF FAITH

This is a temptation, sometimes we do not pray because we don’t see the use in praying, this reflects a lack of faith in God. An example of this is for example when we think there is no use in praying, and we even say: why should we pray if we can do something else! This is lack of faith.

5. – RUDENESS

Spiritual fathers define it as a form of roughness or harshness due to laziness, vigilance carelessness, and heart negligence. “The spirit is willing, but flesh is weak” (Mathew 26, 41).

Printer friendly page