When You Don't Know What To Pray Anymore

A few years ago I was standing in the middle of a Home Depot when my phone rang. I had a sheet of plywood measurements folded in my pocket, sawdust still stuck to one sleeve, and I was already irritated because the thing I’d planned to finish that afternoon was taking twice as long as it should have. The person calling gave me news about someone I cared about, and within about thirty seconds the plywood didn’t matter anymore.

I remember hanging up and continuing to stand there. People were walking around me pushing those oversized carts that never seem to steer straight, somebody nearby dropped something metal, and an employee asked whether I needed help finding anything. I said no, although at that particular moment I probably needed help finding several things that weren't sold in the building.

I wanted to pray.

Nothing came.

That bothered me because prayer is a significant part of my life. I’ve prayed publicly, privately, with people, for people, when things were going wonderfully and when they weren't, so you would think I’d know what to say when something serious happened.

I didn't.

“God, I…”

That was about as far as I got.

Sometimes Your Mind Just Goes Blank

I used to think not knowing what to say meant something had gone wrong spiritually.

Maybe I wasn't focused enough. Maybe fear was interfering with my faith. Maybe I needed to find the right Scripture first.

Or maybe I had just received bad news in aisle twelve.

We can make prayer unnecessarily complicated when we're frightened. Suddenly we're inspecting our own faith while we're trying to use it, which is a little like checking whether your legs are working properly while you're already running.

I've done this with other situations too.

There was a night when someone asked me to pray about a family problem that had become painfully complicated. Several people were involved. Everybody had a different version of what happened, old resentment had gotten mixed with new resentment, and I knew just enough about the situation to know that I didn't know enough.

I started praying and caught myself trying to tell God how to fix it.

That was awkward.

I stopped.

“Father, You know what actually happened here. I don't.”

Honestly, that may have been the most accurate sentence I prayed that night.

Romans 8 Means More To Me Than It Used To

Romans 8:26 says, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.”

I had read that verse many times before I paid much attention to one particular phrase.

We know not what we should pray for.

Paul actually admits it.

He doesn't say immature Christians occasionally don't know what to pray. He includes himself. We.

That comforts me because there are situations where I genuinely don't know what the right outcome should be.

I've prayed for opportunities that later disappeared and, months afterward, felt relieved they had. I've also prayed for things to change when perhaps I should have been asking God whether I needed to change something first.

Not always.

Sometimes the situation really does need to change.

I don't want to turn every hardship into a lesson about fixing yourself because that's another Christian habit that can become exhausting.

A Prayer I Couldn’t Finish

Someone once asked me to pray for a marriage that was struggling badly.

I knew both people.

That made it worse.

When you know only one side of a conflict, it's easy to build a prayer around the version you've heard. When you know both people, you start remembering conversations, personality quirks, things one person said three years ago, something the other one probably never forgot.

I started praying for reconciliation.

Then I hesitated.

There were issues involved that needed more than everybody agreeing to be nice again. Hurt had accumulated. Trust had been damaged. One person needed to take responsibility for something substantial.

I remember sitting there thinking, What exactly am I asking God to do?

So the prayer got messy.

“God, help them. Show them what is true. Deal with whatever needs dealing with. Give them wisdom because I don't know what to ask for here.”

There were long pauses.

Nobody would've clipped that prayer for a motivational video.

I think God heard it.

We Put A Lot Of Pressure On Words

Christians can become very concerned with saying prayers correctly.

I understand why.

Words matter.

Jesus taught His disciples how to pray. Scripture gives us language for worship, confession, thanksgiving, intercession, petition. I believe there is tremendous value in learning how Scripture speaks so our prayers aren't governed entirely by whatever emotion happens to be loudest that morning.

Still, I've had moments when my theology was fine and my vocabulary wasn't available.

Grief can do that.

Shock can.

Exhaustion certainly can.

There are nights when a person doesn't need twelve prayer points. They need to know they can say, “Jesus, help me,” and stay there for a minute.

I Heard A Man Pray Five Words Once

Years ago I was around a man dealing with a situation involving his adult son.

He didn't talk much about it.

You could tell it was hurting him, though. His whole posture changed whenever the subject came up, and once when a few of us were praying together, it was his turn to pray.

He sat quietly.

Long enough that I wondered whether he was going to say anything.

Finally he said, “God, please bring my boy home.”

That was it.

Someone else continued praying afterward.

I don't remember what anybody else said.

I remember his five words.

There was nothing impressive about them. No explanation of the circumstances. No Bible verse attached. He didn't tell God what sequence of events needed to happen.

He wanted his son home.

God knew the rest.

I think about that man occasionally when I find myself trying to improve a prayer while I'm praying it.

Sometimes I Borrow Words From Scripture

Psalm 61 begins, “Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer.”

That's useful when you have a cry but not much of a speech.

Psalm 13 is even more uncomfortable. David asks, “How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever?”

That doesn't sound like the sanitized version of faith we sometimes present to one another.

He asked God a hard question.

I've needed those kinds of passages because they remind me that biblical prayer isn't always composed and cheerful.

Sometimes Scripture gives me words I wouldn't have allowed myself to use.

“How long?”

“Why?”

“Help.”

“Remember me.”

Those aren't sophisticated prayers.

They are in the Bible anyway.

There Are Also Times I Don’t Say Much

This happened fairly recently.

I had been thinking about several people who were going through difficult things at the same time. One situation involved health. Another involved a family decision. There was something else weighing on me personally.

I intended to spend time in daily prayer over all of it.

I got through one situation and became tired.

Not spiritually tired. Just tired.

My thoughts kept drifting. I was trying to concentrate and caught myself mentally reorganizing something I needed to do later.

I finally stopped trying to manufacture intensity.

I sat there.

“Father, You know all of this.”

Quiet again.

I don't know how long.

Eventually I got up.

Part of me still has trouble counting that as prayer because I like prayer to have identifiable content. Beginning. Requests. Thanksgiving. Amen.

That one barely had nouns.

I’m Learning Not To Fill Every Silence

Silence makes us uncomfortable.

If you're talking with another person and neither of you says anything for fifteen seconds, somebody usually feels responsible for fixing it.

Prayer can inherit that nervousness.

We start filling space.

Father, thank You for this day, thank You for everything You've done, please bless everybody, guide me, protect me, help me...

None of those requests are wrong.

I've simply noticed that sometimes I'm talking because I don't know how to be quiet before God.

There's a difference between having nothing to say and having nothing worth bringing to Him.

I’m still learning that difference.

You Can Admit That You Don’t Know

I think one of the healthiest sentences I've added to my prayers is simply:

“God, I don't know.”

I don't know what this person needs.

I don't know whether this opportunity is good.

I don't know what is happening behind that person's behavior.

I don't know whether I should keep pushing or stop.

I don't know whether I'm seeing this clearly.

I don't know.

There’s something strangely relieving about saying that without immediately following it with an answer.

We don't like staying there.

I certainly don't.

Some Prayers Are More Like Fragments

If you genuinely don't know what to pray when you don't know what to say, I've found myself using prayers as small as these:

“Father, help me see this correctly.”
“Jesus, I need You here.”
“God, I’m angry and I don't know what to do with it.”
“Please help them. I don't even know what help should look like.”
“Give me wisdom before I make this worse.”
“I don't understand.”
“Lord, I'm here.”

I wouldn't turn that list into another prayer formula.

That's almost the opposite of what I mean.

Some days you'll have plenty to say.

Say it.

Other days you may open your mouth and discover there's just a lump in your throat and one person's name.

Say the name.

I Still Prefer The Prayers Where I Know What I’m Doing

I do.

There are mornings when my mind is clear, Scripture is fresh in me, and I know exactly what I want to bring before God. I enjoy those times.

The confused ones aren't as satisfying.

Especially when the situation itself remains confused afterward.

I wish I could tell you that whenever I've prayed, “God, I don't know,” clarity quickly followed.

It hasn't.

One decision took considerably longer than I wanted. Another situation never made complete sense to me at all. There are people I've prayed for where I still don't know exactly what happened after we lost touch.

That's life.

I thought about that hardware store recently, although I couldn't tell you what I was building that day anymore. I remember the phone call. I remember the noise around me and staring at shelves without actually seeing them.

And I remember those unfinished words.

“God, I…”

At the time, they felt inadequate.

I'm not so sure anymore.