Prayerlessness

The question came the other day: How do you counsel someone who says they never pray?

Well, a lot of my answer depends on why the person isn’t praying. So, I begin by asking questions.

The first question is, “What do you think prayer is?” The word prayer isn’t a word that people, who aren’t Christians, use very often, at least not in an understanding way. It might just be that the person is praying, they just don’t know that that is what they are doing.

So, to begin with, we might need to talk about what prayer is. To do this, I would determine really quickly whether to do a Bible study on what prayer is or simply tell the person that prayer is what it is called when you have a conversation with God. Then we might look at some passages of scripture where a Biblical character is praying and calling it prayer. For example, “And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen” (Acts 1:24). The text says they prayed and then told us what they said and to whom when they prayed. Simply put, they talked to God.

Having determined what prayer is and that the person still doesn’t pray, I might ask, “Why don’t you pray?”

I’ve found that people don’t pray for a number of reasons. Sometimes people don’t pray because they don’t know how to pray. They see others doing it, but they don’t know what it’s all about and they don’t know how themselves. In this case, God is right there, waiting for them, but they aren’t talking to him. And the counsel for such a situation might be as follows:

In keeping with my idea that people learn best when they discover things themselves (with guidance from someone who has gone before), I would give the person a lot of homework where they have the opportunity to observe Biblical characters doing a lot of praying. This is almost everywhere in the Bible, but it is most clear in the Psalms. The psalms are songs and should be sung, but they are also all prayers of one kind or another.

With this in mind, the homework would be something like, read the first 20 chapters of the book of Psalms. As you read, join in with the psalmist as he talks to God. Make his prayers your prayers. Take notes on the kinds of things he asked for, what his attitude was toward God, what his attitude was toward the topics and people he prayed about, and how that all works for you. Next week, we’ll talk about what you learned and how your own application of praying went for you.

Then the next week, we will talk about how it went, what the person learned, and where we can go from there.

Other ideas for homework would be to do this same thing with psalm 119, the epistles in the New Testament, the prayers of Jesus and the prophets, etc. There are lots of examples of praying in the Bible. The person can use Biblical examples of prayer as templates for their own prayers, or as examples of how to pray.

Along with this, we would talk about attitudes in prayer, who we pray to, body positions in prayer, kinds of prayer, fasting, praying for family, enemies, non-Christians, praying alone and with others, etc.

I mentioned that there are many reasons why people don’t pray. I’ve been talking about helping someone to pray who simply doesn’t know how to pray. We now turn to the other main reason people don’t pray—sin. People often don’t pray, when they know how and to whom to pray, because they are in sin and thus out of fellowship with God. When you are rebelling against someone, the last thing you want to do is talk to them. Also, being out of fellowship means that God isn’t talking to them either.

The interesting thing is that very often, people don’t connect these two things. They know they are in sin, but don’t realize that that is the reason their prayers are just “bouncing off the ceiling.” I imagine that sometimes people don’t talk to God because things have gone badly for them and they are holding God responsible for not doing whatever was expected of him. But sin is tied up in that as well. Who says God is supposed to do what we want or expect him to do? Is God our servant? So, if that is why your friend isn’t talking to him, they’re in sin.

To help the person discover and clear up these things, I’ll ask more questions. Here are some common areas that I ask about:

Unconfessed sin. Many people have sinned but haven’t confessed it. They might not even know about confession of sin. I made a video about it because so many people come to me and have no idea what to do when they sin. So, I begin there. Have you been sinning and not “fixed” things with God?

Sin filled relationships with other people. Have you confessed your sin to God, but not made it right with the people involved? When you weren’t respectful to your husband, you sinned against God, but you also sinned against your husband. Did you confess your sin to your husband and ask him for forgiveness? If you are still out of fellowship with your fellow human being, you’re also still out of fellowship with God.

If the person I am talking to is married, I would ask them about the state of their marriage. 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” What this tells us is that if a man isn’t loving his wife well, his prayers are hindered. That is, even though he might be “praying,” he isn’t really praying. So, again, he needs to do some confessing and repenting.

I mention repenting here because it is one thing to admit that you’ve sinned and repaired the relationship. It is another to repair the ruins of the relationship by changing your mind and therefore, actions. This is what repentance means. So, your relationship with God and others is repaired when you confess your sin, and forgiveness is granted, but if you don’t change your ways, you’ll just sin again and be right back where you started.

There’s another question I ask along these lines, “Are you simply choosing not to pray? Do you not feel like praying? And is that why you aren’t praying? (I know that looks like three questions, but it’s really just a way to ask the same one in different ways.)

Often, people don’t pray because they don’t feel like it and so they don’t. But, while prayer is one of the things that naturally follows having a relationship with the creator of the universe, people still pay way too much attention to how things feel. I think God knew this and that’s why he gave commands like, “…pray without ceasing,” (1 Thess 5:17). There are a number of other places in Scripture where prayer isn’t an option. If we love God, love Jesus, and are filled with the Holy Spirit, we must pray a lot. It doesn’t matter how we feel. If we don’t feel like praying, we need to change our minds and obey God.

For homework in these situations, I would give folks the assignment of watching my video, looking up all the passages mentioned, do what I say (confess all sin, ask for forgiveness, and repent), and then read large sections of Scripture, starting with the Gospel of John. While reading, ask God to change them into Jesus’ likeness as they read, noticing how much and how often Jesus prays.

I might ask them to read Psalm 119 and as they read take notes on the psalmist’s attitude toward God and his word (really two different parts) and ask God to give them the same attitude while they are reading. 

In all these cases, they should be prepared to discuss what they come up with with me the next week.

After this, if fellowship is good, sin is confessed, knowledge is up to snuff, etc. prayer should be a normal part of the person’s walk with God. If it isn’t, we’ll ask more questions and see what the problem is and go from there.

I hope this helps.

Image by AgnieszkaMonk from Pixabay