Lent 26: When we don't feel like praying

I have been trying to pray for at least half an hour every day for lent.

Sometimes I don't feel like it.  Maybe I'm tired, or distracted, or have things I want to sort out/think about.  Maybe I don't feel receptive today.  Or maybe I don't think God is really interested in my problems today.  Or perhaps I have too much to pray about.  Or maybe I think what I have to pray about is too big for God.

I don't feel like praying today.

I am tired, and distracted.

But I still sat myself down, lit a candle and went through the motions, even though I said about one and a half words to God, and certainly didn't stop long enough to listen to anything back.

Why?  Why bother when it does nothing for me today?

Because the more I pray, and the more often I pray, the more I experience God.

Not every time, not even most times, and not in equal intensity.  But if I don't pray when I don't feel like it, I will be less likely to be able to sit still and listen even when I do feel like it.

Prayer is a skill to practice, just like anything - practising sitting patiently in the presence of God and waiting on God is no mean feat.

I am using Lent to practise prayer.  To see what happens when I actually sit down each day for, say, the length of a meal time, or a phone call, or something else important in my life.

I am 26 days in and it is sometimes just as hard as it was at the beginning.  But I have learnt that if I stop as soon as it isn't easy, it will take months or even years before I try it again seriously.

I don't want months, or even years, of gap in my relationship with God.  Of course it isn't either all or nothing, but I want to see what really happens when I give even a fraction of the time to God that I give to other people and myself.

It is, after all, a relationship - by definition not one-sided.