When your heart keeps hoping but difficulty keeps pressing in, it is hard not to feel dry, empty, and even a little cynical about prayer. There are days when lifting my hands feels heavy, my heart feels numb, and the words I use to pray sound shallow and rehearsed.
The struggles of life collide with my desire to reach out to God. Sometimes it feels like my soul is resisting the very impulse to speak to him. As Paul Miller says in his book A Praying Life, “Cynicism creates a numbness toward life. It protects you from crushing disappointment, but it paralyses you from doing anything.”
What can you do when you do not know how to pray?
Listen to Sound Doctrine
Earlier this year, I read Miller’s book, and it spoke to me deeply. It explores childlike dependence, the dangers of cynicism, and the tension between God’s promises and our present reality. It struck such a chord that I led our church through a month-long sermon series on prayer.
In those weeks, I felt refreshed and renewed as God reminded me that prayer is not about fixing my circumstances but leaning into God in the midst of them. The circumstances of life have not changed much, but my perspective has changed. Sound doctrine moved from my head to my heart when I needed it most.
Listen to the Testimony of Lament
When prayer feels impossible, the Psalms remind us that God is not offended by our tears, our questions, or even our silence. The Psalms give us language for the ache of living between God’s promises and our painful reality.
Prayer in distressing times is not neat or polished.
In Psalm 137, the writer captures this agony with piercing honesty: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.”
This song was written in tears. Their city was in ruins. The temple, the dwelling place of God, was gone. Their captors mocked them, taunting them to sing songs of Zion. Every memory of worship cut deep, because they remembered all they had lost.
Embrace the Tension
Do you see the tension in Psalm 137? Israel was living in a harsh reality—ruins, loss, and disappointment. Yet, through prophets like Haggai, God spoke words of hope—a promise of greater glory and a future beyond what they could see.
In Psalm 137, we see people caught between two worlds—the crushing reality of exile and the unshakable hope of God’s promises. They were far from home, their worship silenced, and their future uncertain. Yet they still carried God’s covenant promises in their hearts.
God makes space for prayers that do not tie up neatly.
Isn’t that where many of us live today? We cling to promises of God’s faithfulness, yet we wake up to brokenness in our families, finances, or even our hearts.
Prayer in distressing times is not neat or polished. It looks more like sitting by the rivers of Babylon, weeping and waiting for God to restore what feels beyond repair.
See God Redeem the Tension
Nearly one-third of the Psalms are laments. Consider Psalm 42:5, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?” The psalmist knows God is faithful. But he still feels crushed by waves of sorrow. Such is the tension in which we live. We can preach the truth to our hearts even when our feelings have not yet caught up to it.
Psalm 88 is one of the darkest laments. It does not end with resolution, but with the haunting line: “Darkness is my closest friend.”
Imagine that! God makes space for prayers that do not tie up neatly. He is showing us we do not need to hide our discouragement. Even raw honesty can turn into worship when it is laid before him in prayer.
Rely on Our Great Intercessor
Besides the written testimony of Scripture and God’s promises, the intercession of Christ and the Holy Spirit makes all the difference.
In Romans 8:26–27, God reminds us that his Spirit groans with us in our weakness. He intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. Later, we see Christ himself, seated at the right hand of the Father, is also interceding on our behalf.
When your room feels empty, heaven is full of prayer on our behalf.
In Christ, we are God’s beloved. The Holy Spirit secures us and sustains us, even in our weakness and suffering. Only such intercession can fill the emptiness between promise and reality. The gracious work of God intercedes for us through our sighs, our weakness, and even our silence.
Lament is not a license to despair. The work of Christ and the Spirit leads us from our waiting, weeping, and groaning to participate in God’s redemptive story. The ache itself can lead us to worship because our great intercessor carries it to God on our behalf when we do not know how to pray.
Enjoy Restful Celebration
When your room feels empty, heaven is full of prayer on our behalf. If we are too weak to find the words to pray, the Spirit speaks for us. When we lose sight of hope, Christ intercedes for us without reservation.
We are free to live in restful celebration. Though our circumstances may not change, we can celebrate God’s certain promise to redeem all things and work all things out for the good of all who are in Christ (Rom. 8:28).
Our hope is not in our eloquent prayers, but in the faithfulness of Christ as our intercessor.
