I, like many Christians, pray before I go to sleep at night. But I have a problem. I always get really distracted while I'm praying, by what I'm praying about. I can literally be distracted by thinking for a maximum of 15 minutes before I realize that I'm still praying and that I need to get to bed. For example, I could be praying that I can get more motivated to clean around the house, and then I'd go into thinking about how I could clean, about how I could set up a schedule, and about how I could get my parents in on it, and blah blah blah when I realize that I'm still praying. I seriously can't stop this from happening. It happens literally every time I pray before bed. Do you guys have the same problem??

Yes. It happens to me sometimes too. I'll think about what I could do/say differently, what I shouldn't do/say differently, different things like that until I realize I've strayed from the prayer so I ask God to help me stay focused.

Popeye116 : I have to admit...even though I like to call myself the FaithFighter. I am probably one of the worst people at praying. Only when something horrible happens and I need to pour my heart out to HIM or when something really good happens and I am thanking HIM over and over again can I seem to get my thoughts and prayers together. My mind wanders so much that I wish I had a prayer channel in my brain so that nothing could interfere with my prayer. I'm definitely no prayer warrior. And I stink at prayer requests. I think I almost need to write out my prayer. Hmm...that might actually work for me...

well Popeye... I think one of the things that bothers me most about your post is that your view of praying is like an open and shut door.  You start a prayer with something like "Dear Heavenly Father....." and then you view the prayer as 'not complete' until you've said "...Amen".

God is not an open and shut door. Communication with God does not begin with a few words, and end with a few words. Remember that God knows you better than you yourself do.... and that He is ALWAYS in constant communication with you... always lending an ear whether you realize it or not. He knows your most intimate thoughts, desires, and fears.

Why is this important?

When you pray, there is no 'rule' for what you can and can't say to God.  I mean... don't start talking to God and start cursing Him out....

But God seeks our constant attention and communication.

Don't think of those thoughts as distractions... Think of them as opportunities to talk with God. Treat Him like your best friend.  Ask Him to help you be a more motivated cleaner... then when your thoughts stray, refocus on God. Tell God how you will clean, how you can set up those schedules, how you can get your parents involved... etc.  Guess what....?  God WANTS you to talk to Him like that.

If you need to practice, frequently talk to God throughout your day. Don't start with a "Dear God" and end with an "Amen".  Keep communication open and constant.


Now, am I saying you should NEVER start prayers with a respectful greeting and a respectful praise and closure?  Absolutely not!  There are times when you need to focus ONLY on one thing. When you come to God with a strong desire or supplication, or with the intent to worship.... any times are appropriate for reverence.  Just keep your thoughts focused on God and towards God, and He will be pleased.

There's a reason why we are struggling to pray.  The Enemy KNOWS it's effective and we fall for his lies every time and we get tripped up by "it's too late, I'm tired."  "It's too early, I'm tired."  "I'm too busy." - distractions...  There is so much to say about prayer, but I'll just share my own experiences.  Yes, I struggle to pray too or I get distracted sometimes when I do pray.  In fact, as I'm typing this, I'm going through this lull where I'm kind of in a rut as far as my prayer life is concerned.  It's exactly where the enemy wants me / you and the irony is, it is BECAUSE of prayer that we get strength.  It is BECAUSE of talking to the Lord that we find peace, but our stubborn sinful nature just doesn't want to go there as often as we would like.  We need to pray to ask God to teach us how to pray  What I've found to be very effective (and this is not a formula!) is to pray early in the morning after a nights rest, when the house is quiet.  Your mind has not been "corrupted" yet by the days business and it has rested.  I have found to have a much more focused and intimate prayer time in the morning.  Also, when I start to pray, I praise God first for who He is.  If you truly recognize who God is and glorify His name, your worldly needs and problems would really seem small.  We need to realize that God is not our personal butler or buddy.  He is HOLY, righteous, Almighty and we should approach Him in prayer that way.  I have realized many times that I'm praying the "wrong way", by always just dumping my needs on Him instead of asking Him what He wants from me.  What does He want me to do.  I am not saying you cannot bring your needs before God.  It's got to do with the way we do it.  We can talk to God about everything and anything.  He knows anyway what you're thinking and what you're going to ask, but He wants you to talk to Him and that is what prayer is.  A conversation between you and our Creator God.  Prayer is not a religious, set time of day activity we need to do just to feel better about ourselves.  It's a continuous conversation between you and God and we get distracted from talking with God because we would rather do other activities and fill our minds with meaningless entertainment than spend time with Him and that's where the distractions come in.  That is why we need to be careful what we fill our heads with.  If you watch a violent movie for example or just keep feeding your eyes with entertainment, the enemy can use that during prayer and just pop a scene from the movie / game into your head to throw you off track.  That has happened to me a couple of times in the past.  There's a reason why the Bible says in 1 Peter 1:15-17, "But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”  Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear."  We need to watch, read and listen to stuff that glorifies God and fill our heads with good and true things.  Entertainment is not necessarily bad for you, but it can be a huge distraction and a weight that can drag your prayer life down.  I can testify of that.  Prayer is obviously not something that comes natural to us and we need to ask God to help us with that and we need to pray even if we don't want to or feel like it.  It is the most important thing in a Christian's life  #preachingtomyself

SoL@R :  My prayer life has been pretty weak as of late also.  (Actually, probably for quite some time.)  What you said reminds me of a sermon I listened to about a week ago.  The preacher was talking about how we should approach God when we pray, and he used the word as an acronym.

P - Praise  (Worship God for who He is.)
R - Repent (Repent for the things we need to turn away from.)
A - Ask (Intercede for particular needs in your life and in other's lives.)
Y - Yield (Surrender to God's will whenever and however He wants to use you.)