Simple but not Easy

A few days ago, the Church celebrated the feast day of St. Philip Neri.  I came across these words from him, “there is nothing the devil fears so much, or so much tries to hinder, as prayer.”  I know I have experienced this reality in my own life.  Prayer itself is simple, but it is not easy.

When it comes to prayer, we can often feel inadequate.  We feel like we don’t know how to pray.  We can feel unmotivated and would rather do a million other things than pray.  We can be distracted, feeling like we got nothing out of our time in prayer.  We think it has to look a certain way and that we aren’t doing it right.  All of these thoughts and feelings we experience when it comes to prayer are not from God.

If you are a parent, you have probably experienced receiving artwork from your kids when they were little (or you were probably that kid giving artwork to your parents).  That artwork was messy, the colors weren’t all in the lines, and maybe it was hard to tell exactly what the artwork was supposed to be.  Yet, you appreciated it, cherished it, and loved it, because it was from your child.  It is like this with God.  No matter what our prayers look like, how messy they are, or how uninterpretable they seem to us, God doesn’t care.  We are his children and He loves that we are coming to Him.  He wants to receive whatever it is we are giving to Him.

The only way we can know God is if we spend time with Him in prayer.  We will face obstacles in this, but we must push past them and keep making an effort.  There are many ways to pray and many forms it can take, so what really matters is that it is part of our daily routine.
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We tend to make prayer more complicated than it actually is.  If we have sat down with the intention to pray, we are off to a good start.  God wants nothing more than for you to spend time with Him sharing your heart and listening.  When you feel tempted to give up, ask God to help you to begin again.