How to pray when you don't feel like it

How to pray when you don't feel like it

Sometimes even I don’t feel like praying — and I’m a pastor. It’s normal. Human beings are very fickle. One day you feel like you can take on the world. The next day you feel like you don’t want to be in the world.

Feelings… If we live by them, we’re doomed.

Thank God there’s an alternative: Doing what we have to do and not what we feel like doing.

When I don’t feel like praying, here’s what I do: I pray anyway. And I find that just like a lot of things in life, once you start doing something, the feeling will follow. First motion, then emotion. Sometimes I don’t feel like eating. But when I start, I want to eat more… I had to start writing this before I felt like doing it. I hate writing, but now, I’m glad I started.

You get the idea.

The main thing is to settle in your head that you absolutely NEED to pray. It’s not an option. Sure for a lot of people it is (because they don’t know what they’re missing), but not for you. The consequences would be much worse than the small effort you have to make to pray.

So you haven’t talked to God lately. You haven’t felt like it. No problem. Are you alone in the room right now? Can you go somewhere private? Then stop reading this and go pray. Two minutes or twenty — it doesn’t matter. Say what you have to say and that’s it.

Then come back here, and add your comments about how doing that made you feel.

Now go.

Bispo Renato Cardoso