Barriers to Prayer
Praying is often not easy - it can be difficult to get into a regular pattern of prayer, keeping our concentration on God. The "On our Knees?" prayer survey asked respondents to rate the degree to which five possible obstacles to prayer caused them difficulty.Wandering thoughts was found to be the biggest obstacle, with over 80% of respondents finding this at least "sometimes a problem". Two thirds of respondents found noise or other distractions to be a problem, and just over half (54%) found finding time a barrier. The two areas which were found to be less problematic were knowing what to pray for (23%) and knowing what to say (32%)
This is supported by a separate survey, run by former Evangelical Alliance prayer secretary, Brian Mills. This survey asked an unprompted question about what they found to be the biggest barrier to prayer. The top 5 mentioned were :
 Keeping Concentration (40%) Wandering thoughts (19%) Distractions (9%) Finding Time (6%) Tiredness (6%) |
Here are some tips for dealing with these
distractions: - start small - aim for 10 minutes and succeed rather than feel guilty you couldn't pray for an hour. - it's easier to pray when you are fresh, rather than last thing at night. - don't worry about other thoughts entering your mind - either use them as a basis for prayer, or consciously turn your mind onto another topic. |
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This survey also asked what was the greatest encouragement to prayer when praying alone. The most common answers were :
| Answered Prayer (20%) Being in God's presence (9%) Spending time in the Bible (9%) Hearing from God (5%) Quiet / Peace (5%) Knowing God is listening (5%) |
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Answered prayer is one of the most precious gifts that God gives us, and one of the greatest encouragements to further prayer. We should not pray solely because we want our prayers answered, since spending time in the presence of our Lord should be reason enough. However, we should take time to be grateful for answered prayer. Keeping a diary of prayer can be helpful - this can help us remember those prayers which have been answered, and help us to remember the Lord's faithfulness and goodness when our walk of faith is harder. |
| There is an old adage which says that
"couples which pray together, stay together!" Roughly half of the respondents
were married to a Christian partner and living with them. One quarter of these couples
pray together either each day or most days, and a further quarter claim to pray together
less often, but at least monthly. 20% claim to pray together, but less frequently, and the
remaining third never pray together. Extrapolating these results to the whole church
suggests that possibly as many as three quarters of Christian couples who do not pray
together regularly. There is clearly a barrier to be overcome in couples praying together - perhaps it is embarassment, perhaps it is due to couples finding it easier to pray with others. Whatever the barrier is, there is a clear need to encourage Christian couples to try praying together - who knows - they may even get to like it! |
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