Help! I'm Not Good at Prayerনমুনা

“I’m not good at prayer.”

In my work as a pastor, I’ve heard hundreds of people say this exact sentence. It’s often the reason people don’t attend small groups or avoid making eye contact with anyone else at a gathering when it’s time to pray before a meal.

If you don’t feel comfortable praying in public, you never feel like your prayers measure up compared to others, or you struggle to pray when it seems God is just going to do whatever He wants, you are welcome here.

This plan is for you!

This plan is not for people who have mastered prayer or pray in ways that leave others saying “wow” or “whoa.” It will not teach you how to pray in long, flowery, and overly spiritual language. This plan does not hold the secrets to solving prayer, as if it’s the result of a confidential formula that only a select few people have accessed.

Instead, this plan is an invitation to pray in a way that Jesus honored and celebrated. So, today, as we begin this plan, I want you to know one important principle—the purpose of prayer is not to get good at prayer. That statement may surprise you, but I hope it also frees you. So many people feel a sense of insecurity about their prayers. As a result, they don’t pray often and rarely pray in the presence of someone else.

I can promise you that those decisions excite our enemy, the devil. If he can keep us from praying, he can prevent us from experiencing intimacy with God and confident living in the world.

In writing this plan, I pray that you experience a breakthrough in your relationship with God over these five days.

This plan will look at an eye-opening parable that Jesus told in Luke 18:9-14. This parable included two men who were praying in the temple.

The first man was a Pharisee (a religious leader), and his prayer was a lot of things. It was long, flowery, spiritual, and frankly condescending. The second man was a tax collector (the least popular person in the community), and his prayer was short, simple, and honest.

Jesus commended the tax collector’s prayer and described how that man went home “justified before God.” In other words, Jesus said the tax collector was in right standing with God because of how he prayed.

The tax collector’s prayer was simple. “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

I have prayed those seven words on hundreds of occasions when my battle with anxiety and panic attacks became overwhelming. When my anxiety was costing me sleep, creating high blood pressure and a sense of panic, and I was contemplating going to the hospital because I felt like I was having heart issues, I would pray, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” again and again. I was desperate. I felt weak. I couldn’t form sentences, but I had memorized that prayer, which became my lifeline. I didn’t pray flowery words — I just cried out to God!

In this parable of Jesus, we see that the person who is “good at prayer” is not good with God. The person who is “not good at prayer” leaves right before God. Presentation was the first man’s concern, while desperation was God’s concern.

My hope is that during this plan, you’ll learn that what God values in prayer is not what the world values. If you don’t feel good during prayer, that’s okay. God doesn’t want excellent performance in prayer—He wants something much more important: people who will genuinely and passionately seek Him.

I hope to see you back here tomorrow when we dive into the first of four invitations found in this parable. You’ll want to open and accept these invitations because they can transform the way you pray!