How content are you with your prayer life?  Do you have the relationship with God that your heart desires?

My guess would be that most of us feel that our prayer life could be better.  We all know we need to pray and it seems that there are many common reasons why we don’t pray as often as we would like.

Here are 3 Common Road Blocks to A Meaningful Prayer Life and ideas of how to overcome them.

1. Time~  Everyone will tell you they just don’t have the time to pray as much as they think they should. 

Time management is a challenge in all areas of our lives.  How do we make more time to pray?

I have found that I find more time to pray in one of the two ways: I schedule it or I attach it to things I am already doing.

In order to know that I will accomplish something I have found I have to schedule it.  When I know that I need to hear from the Lord I have to block out specific time to spend with Him.  Intentional time, talking and listening with the Lord just like in any other relationship time is a must!

Another way I make time to pray is to add it to things I already do daily.  I have found that adding prayer time to my morning routine has been helpful.

Putting my prayer list in the bathroom has helped me to remember to pray while I am putting on my make-up each morning.  I can do my hair and put on make-up by route memory so I have brain power available to talk to my Lord about those I love.

2. Distractions~  Along with the busy pace of live our minds are often on overdrive.  Focusing on the Lord and talking with Him can be challenging even when we find the time.

Overcoming distraction can be very difficult.  I have found that playing quiet instrumental music helps me.

I love praise music and there can be times that just praising Him with music is refreshing and nourishing to my soul but it doesn’t usually bring about focused prayer time. I stick with just instrumental during my intentional prayer time to ward off this temptation.

I have also found that writing down my prayers and even God’s responses to me brings me the most focused time of prayer with Him.  I often write a prayer almost like a letter to God.  I have recently begun incorporating the things which I hear God say back to me in my journal as well.

These prayers are a treasure which have offered much encouragement even years later.

3. Struggling With the Answers You Have Received~  All of us have had prayers that were not answered the way we wanted them to be.  The more we experience this the more we tend to shy away from praying.

I don’t know how many times I have had to step back from a situation, settle down and really look at it from a different perspective.  When I do this I can usually always find God’s hand all over the situation.

I wrote the blog post Silver Linings about difficult times in my life and how I have been able to allow the Lord to show me His hand in each of those times.  You can read that post here if you would like to hear about some of these times.

Some people become consumed with the why in many of life’s challenges but we don’t always get to the see the whys in how things turn out. this side of heaven.
Prayer cannot only be about requesting what we want to happen or even be about the why of what is happening.

I have learned to focus my prayers on the attitude to my heart, focusing on the truth of who I know Christ to be and praising Him for all He has already done. I still come to Him expecting Him to act/answer but not so much with a specific answer in mind.

Disappointment is sure to follow when you already have it all figured out and you are just praying to let God know how to take care of things.

Priscilla Shirer sums it up well in her book Fervent. “ And if I were your enemy, that’s exactly what I’d want.  I’d want to make you devalue the most potent weapons in your arsenal.  I’d strategies against you, using carefully calculated methods to disorient and defeat you.

Prayer in an invaluable tool in our toolbox of spiritual growth.  I hope that when you experience one of these 3 roadblocks you will feel more equipped to be able to overcome it.

I would love to hear what kind of roadblocks you have experienced and how you have overcome them.  Please share below.