Habit of Prayer: Why We Struggle and Why We Need to Do Better

Why is it important for women to be cultivating the habit of prayer?

We live in a time and culture that craves instant gratification. We tend to live a fast-paced, mulit-tasking, Dopamine-dependent, and screen-addicted life. While Bible reading and deep, lay-it-at-the-feet-of-Jesus, prayer takes time, it takes our full attention, and challenges us.

I could give you a list of different ways to slow down. Such as stop over-committing to things and don’t let your kids participate in every activity that is available. I could give you a list of ways to make time in your day. Such as get off social media, turn off screens, adjust schedules, etc. Or I could give you a list of ways to build scripture and prayer into your life. Such as praying for your children while washing laundry. Or thanking God for His provisions as you scrub dishes. Or listen to hymns, sermons, or an audio Bible as you drive.

And while I plan to write posts on those topics, today I want to quickly look at why we should develop the habit of prayer.

Why Do We Need Habit of Prayer?

Why do we not pray?

Do we doubt that God hears us or if He cares? Is it that we don’t believe prayer is crucial to our faith? Are we stubbornly holding on to a false belief that we can control the situation, or solve the problem, or make the decision on our own? Are we embarrassed that our prayers do not sound eloquent? Or is it that we believe our prayers will not change God’s will so why pray?

These are all reasons I or women I know have used to justify our poor prayer life. Lord willing, I will be writing many more posts about prayer and will address all of these reasons but today I want to focus on the last one.

God is sovereign and already has a plan so why pray? If He knows our needs why pray? God knows what we will ask for before we pray so why pray?

To understand God’s providence in relationship to our prayers we need to have a proper understanding of prayer.

God calls us to pray to our benefit, to strengthen our dependence on Him.

AW Pink said, “Prayer is not designed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it is designed as a confession to Him of our sense of need.”

R.C. Sproul on the Habit of Prayer

R.C. Sproul said, “As we engage in this communion with God more deeply and come to know the One with whom we are speaking more intimately, that growing knowledge of God reveals to us all the more brilliantly who we are and our need to change in conformity to Him. Prayer changes us profoundly.”

Prayer changes us! God uses prayer to show us who we are and why we need Him. God has designed prayer to strengthen our relationship with Him but there is another reason prayer is important.

Jonathan Edwards on Prayer

Jonathan Edwards says about prayer, “It hath a great tendency to keep the soul in a wakeful frame, and to lead us to a strict walk with God, and to a life that shall be fruitful in such good works, as tend to adorn the doctrine of Christ, and to cause our light so to shine before others, that they, seeing our good works, shall glorify our Father who is in heaven.”

Prayer keeps us in line with God and on the path to a fruitful life that produces good works. And God can use those good works to glorify Himself.

And to throw a little catechism in there,

What is the chief end of man?

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

God Uses the Prayers of Men

Jonathan Edwards also provides us with a sample of instances in the Bible where God used man’s prayers to glorify Himself.

“God’s character is seen by the greatness of the things He has done in response to prayer. When Jacob prayed, Esau’s heart was turned from vengeance. When Moses prayed, God brought terrible plagues on Egypt. When Samson prayed, his strength was returned to him so that he was able to pull down the temple of Dagon on the Philistines. When Joshua prayed, the sun stood still.

When Elijah prayed, it did not rain for three and a half years. Then when Elijah prayed again, rain came. When Asa prayed, God confounded the army of Zerah the Ethiopian. When Hezekiah prayed, God sent an angel to kill 185,000 of Sennacharib’s army. God’s power has been demonstrated in many miraculous works in response to the prayers of His people. God not only hears the cry of His people, but He hears their silent longings, as in the case of Hannah whose prayer was but in her heart”

So why should we develop the habit of prayer?

Because it benefits us by drawing us into a deeper relationship with God and it glorifies God.

Now that I have given a little bit of the why for cultivating this habit, I want to encourage us to be doers.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones stresses to “Always, respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this – always obey such an impulse. Where does it come from? It is the work of the Holy Spirit.”

I want to challenge you to really try to do that this week. If you are scrolling social media and get that nudge that you should be using you time more wisely, to glorify God, stop and pray.

I strongly suggest that you find a couple women to partner with for accountability. I cherish the women that check in on how my Bible reading and prayer life is going.

I’m working on a post sharing all of my tips for cultivating the habit of prayer but would love to hear more ideas. Please share any of your tips or insights on prayer in the comments!

One Tip

One of my tips is to be in the Word more. The more you are in the Word of God the easier it is to pray. I talk about my experience with this in a blog post I recently wrote about how this blog came to be. Check it out here – Reforming Womanhood.

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