Why we stop praying.

I wrote recently about my experience at Bible College, and that I stopped praying.

I didn't 'stop' exactly, but my prayer life changed in the strangest of ways.

I am going to tell you a little bit of my story, and then I'll tell you the experiences of others as they have explained them to me.

I remember, many moons ago, when I still had some dark hair, visiting my placement minister during my first year of Bible College. We sat down for a cuppa, he inquired after my college work and preaching schedule, and then he dropped this bombshell on me:

How's your prayer life?

It was a question I was both dreading and needing to be asked.

My prayer life was in the gutter.

I had always been good at prayer. I would spend an hour almost every night, sat in my front room with a candle and some relaxing music (William Orbit, Pieces In A Modern Style is still my favourite for this), and just focus on God, allowing the great feeling of oneness to surround me. The return to the womb of a Heavenly mother embraced me. Prayer time was great.

I had long passed the time of seeing prayer time as an opportunity to just ask God for things, or to just 'get blessed', prayer was a time to reflect on the things of God in my life, to allow myself to be probed and challenged.

I thought I had a handle on it.

So when I was asked by my placement minister how my prayer life was, and I had to admit that it had become non-existent in the spate of six months, I thought this would be the beginning of the end. That I had failed as a Christian, and that I would be shown the door from Bible college. Why would anyone want a minister who couldn't pray?

I would try all the same things that I had always done, I spent my hour in silence, I lit my candle, but nothing. I was sat in silence alone.

What happened next was one of the strangest conversations I have ever had. My minister told me that he already knew.

Where I was was concerned, now I am in panic. Someone so spiritual had been told by God about my ailing prayer life, the Spirit had communicated to him that I wasn't fit for ministry. Then he said this:

'It happens to all of us, and I have never had a successful candidate for ministry who hasn't said the same thing.'

And he was right. Every successful ministerial candidate I have ever spoken to has said the same thing. We feel a distance from God that we have never experienced before.

It would be lovely to say that this is fleeting, that once I had finished training and settled into the rhythm of ministry that it all came back. Sadly this isn't the case, for myself or for anyone else I speak with. Instead our prayer lives have changed into something unrecognisable.

There's a distance to God now because I have become aware at how distant God is. God is higher than I had ever conceived. And God has called me to reach new heights in prayer.

Prayer isn't that thing I do for one hour a night, it's not just saying the Our Father before sleep, or grace over dinner. Prayer is a conversation I entered with God a decade ago, and we have never stopped talking. And I've still yet to have a straight answer.

Of course there's a reason for this. The minute I 'understand', or 'know' God, that's the minute God ceases to be God and becomes my understanding.

Often times this conversation becomes quite animated. I have found myself walking to and fro in my back garden for an hour, to all the world it must seem that I am talking to myself. Instead I am learning how tentative my grasp on all things Godly is. I get a million and one questions from God and every answer I give seems to be wrong, or at least not fully right.

And here's the strange thing. I wouldn't change this state of confusion. Or to put it another way, felling lost in wonder, love, and praise.

I have been doing ministry for years now, and I have been privileged to have similar conversations with other candidates, always in their first year of training, and they always have the same feelings.

Usually, just knowing that you're not alone in this struggle is comfort enough. Most people work through the distance and into a new, different prayer life. But there are some who can't.

I am always saddened when I remember those I trained with who, when the silence came, reverted back to their old model of prayer and didn't press in with God. They are no longer in ministry. And this does sadden me.

God called them to step out of the boat, to step into a new frontier, and they chose the comfort of the familiar.

For those of you in ministry, this will all sound familiar. For those of you hoping to enter ministry, please take these words to heart and be aware of what is ahead of you. And for everyone else, you also may well find your own prayer life change, you may find your own distance from God. This is not your failing, but your own preparation. Take comfort from know that God is calling you to become lost, in wonder, love, and praise.