Mentoring Men for the Master

IDENTIFYING YOUR HINDRANCES TO PRAYER AND HOW TO REMOVE THEM

If you are not having a meaningful time with your heavenly Father in prayer daily, you should ask why and identify the specific hindrance you may be tolerating and begin to remove your hindrance(s).  Please take the following actions:

Note the “12 Prayer Busters” and the way to remove them on pp. 56-58 of 10 Absolute Life Changers of Men.

 Note 21 additional Hindrances to Prayer, which may be even more applicable to you than the 12 stated in the text book: 

  1. Only Emergency Praying – Many people only pray in times of deep trouble.  Why?  Because they know they cannot handle hard problems alone.  However, when things are normal, those same people do not pray.  Why?  Because they do not realize that every hour and every day of their lives they have problems and dangers they cannot handle within themselves.  Knowing the grave dangers facing us all the time, Jesus said, “Men ought ALWAYS to pray or not give up or fall out of the race of life” (Luke 18:1).  For the same reason the Apostle Paul commands that we pray “without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) and to “pray always with all kinds of prayer in the Holy Spirit…” (Ephesians 6:18).
  2. The Failure to Make “Advance Decisions,” as unto God, to pray.
  3. The Failure to Carry out one’s “Advance Decisions” (which are generic) by obeying specific, concrete, close at hand guidelines, such as:
    1. Setting a definite time each day.
    2. A special place
    3. Sufficient time, etc.
  1. Little or no Internalizing the Word of God. When we can recite the Word of God in our hearts, the Holy Spirit will prompt us to pray.  Without this “inward” word, we lack that motivation.
  2. Unwise Sleeping Habits. Most persons who have an effective prayer life do it at the outset of their day.  If one plans to arise early to pray, he ought to go to bed early; otherwise he will oversleep or be so sleepy when he prays that he falls asleep again.
  3. Thinking that Prayer is Optional when it is commanded of God without fail.
  4. Looking upon Prayer as Mere Human Weakness when it is monumental wickedness, even a great sin.  Samuel, the great prophet, exclaimed, “God forbid that I should sin against God by failing to pray for you” (Israel).  (1 Samuel 12:23).
  5. Too Busy to Pray when in fact too busy not to Pray.  The best book on prayer in many years has this title, Too Busy Not to Pray, by Hybels.
  6. Laziness – Read Proverbs 6:6-11 about the horrible sin of laziness. Also Amos 6:1; Ephesians 5:14.
  7. Ignorance of or Forgetting the incredible benefits of prayer.
  8. No Feeling When I Pray. The Bible commands that we pray when we feel like it, when we don’t feel like it, until we do feel like it (Ephesians 6:18; Luke 11:1; 1 Thess. 5:17).
  9. Having lost your “first love” for Jesus. (Revelations 2:1-4).
  10. The Universal Sin of James 1:22. “Be ye doers of the Word, not hearers only…”
  11. Letting Prayer be a burden or a mere ritual rather than a dynamic blessing.
  12. Not being accountable to our Accountability Partner” for praying – Hebrews 10:24.
  13. Not praying with your wife.
  14. Missing Lessons in MMM designed to encourage you to pray.
  15. Religion without relationship with Jesus Christ.
  16. Disobeying 1 Timothy 2:8
  17. Riveted to the Tube
  18. Obsessed with the Computer

Why We Do Not Pray More

  1. The Iniquity of our hearts.  
  2. The Ignorance of our minds.
  3. The Infirmity of our bodies.
  4. The Invasion on our time.
  1. The Influence of our adversary, Satan.

From: Chuck OConnor