Ten Typical Temptations in the Battle of Prayer

I am participating in the six-month #INSPIRE2020 challenge, in which Indian Catholic content creators write about a particular topic every month. This month's topic is The Battle of Prayer, a section in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you are an Indian Catholic, and would like to participate, sign up here: https://forms.gle/o5A1ZzBNFM94HoFP8  

Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. CCC 2725

You'd have thought after about twenty years of attempting to follow Jesus and prioritize prayer, I would have this down. I should have been a prayer expert by now- effortlessly awaking at dawn to spend a few hours in joyful communion with my Creator. Right? Wrong. I still struggle! Some seasons of life are easier than others, but more often than not, I am still tempted to compromise on my prayer time.

What are the typical lies and temptations I face?

1. If it was meant to be, it would be easier: This is just a general lazy principle of life, a lie I subconsciously tell myself, allowing me to take the easier path, to do what I feel like rather than what I know I should do, choosing instant gratification over long-term fruit. It's so much easier to just go with the flow and ride with the tide, but usually the flow doesn't take me into consistent personal prayer.

2. I'm not in the right state of mind: I tell myself that I can't present myself to God just yet, because I'm distracted, tired, not really in a 'spiritual frame of mind', and that when I'm in the right mood, of course, I'll come to prayer. What an easy way to forget that God wants me AS I AM, and not as I think I should be. He embraced the prodigal son while he was still dirty, dusty, smelly, sinful... and then HE cleaned him up.

3. I have many more productive things I should be doing: Somehow prayer doesn't give me the adrenaline shot of feeling like I've ACCOMPLISHED THINGS. So I'll wander around the house doing laundry, putting away dishes, writing schedules on my whiteboard, and I'll feel really good about myself... but I haven't prayed. It's the lie that achieving things makes me valuable, and valued, that my life has meaning because of what I achieve. Because it's so much harder to accept the truth that I don't have to be useful to be loved.

Others overly prize production and profit; thus prayer, being unproductive, is useless. CCC 2727

4. I am just not good at prayer: There are probably some people out there who pray easily, who have focussed, calm, holy minds. Unlike me - my mind is constantly jumping from one thing to another, I am distracted, pulled in so many different directions, more likely to start thinking of a blog about prayer instead of actually praying. Minds like mine aren't contemplative... so why even try?

Some people view prayer as a simple psychological activity, others as an effort of concentration to reach a mental void. CCC 2726

5. It's really my own fault that I can't pray, the guilt and shame and embarrassment keep me from trying: I know I'm making excuses. I know I have allowed habits of laziness and indiscipline to grow and take control of my life. I know I COULD try harder. Why am I like this? If I was God, I would be so done with all these stupid excuses. I make God like me, impatient, unforgiving, demanding, instead of recognizing that He is ready to receive me EVEN when it's my own fault that it's so late, so second best. A contrite spirit He will not spurn.

Another temptation, to which presumption opens the gate, is acedia. The spiritual writers understand by this a form of depression due to lax ascetical practice, decreasing vigilance, carelessness of heart. "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The greater the height, the harder the fall...The humble are not surprised by their distress; it leads them to trust more, to hold fast in constancy.

6. I just don't love God enough: If I really loved Him, wouldn't prayer always be a sweet and easy experience? Wouldn't I desire His presence above all things? Why then do I return to social media, to the accomplishment of tasks, to my phone games, to anything except Him? Obviously my love is weak, or at best, fluctuating. But I forget - love comes down to the will, the choice. And the desire to love Him is of value to Him.

When we begin to pray, a thousand labors or cares thought to be urgent vie for priority; once again, it is the moment of truth for the heart: what is its real love?

7. It's too late now: I should have developed holier habits decades ago. I should have picked up my cross daily years ago. But now I am so far behind. I should have started praying earlier this morning. I should have never wasted those two hours. It's already night, it's too late to pray now. But the truth is - it's never too late. I have the choice to BEGIN AGAIN right now, the moment the thought comes to my mind. Even if it's ten minutes instead of an hour, Jesus would rather have ten minutes of my attention than a continued cold shoulder.

8. I'm never going to get better at this: I am going to get old and gray and still be struggling to have fruitful times of prayer. I am always going to have a head full of distracted thoughts, I am never going to learn to pray before looking at my phone, I am always going to be behind in this area. 

This is the lie of despair and hopelessness. In Jesus, there is ALWAYS hope. Things change. People change. I can change. There ARE some sins of the past I don't struggle with now. Why not this? Can I visualize a more rooted, prayerful me? It is possible.

9. Prayer feels like an obligation, a necessary but annoying task: This perspective leaves out the truth that prayer is about relationship, and that it is a PERSON waiting to meet me and love me, not a taskmaster, with crossed arms and a tapping foot demanding why I haven't prayed YET. That perspective can change everything. No wonder Satan tries to distort our idea of God. 

10. Prayer has to happen all inside my head: I so often forget the helpfulness of singing aloud, or speaking aloud, of praising God aloud, of reading His word aloud. It seems as if it's just me and my distracted thoughts having a conversation when I'm 'in prayer'. Using my voice, my body, writing in a journal, and reading the Word helps me escape the prison of my own thoughts. 

'Prayer and Christian life are inseparable, for they concern the same love and the same renunciation, proceeding from love; the same filial and loving conformity with the Father's plan of love; the same transforming union in the Holy Spirit who conforms us more and more to Christ Jesus; the same love for all men, the love with which Jesus has loved us.' CCC 2745

It shouldn't surprise us that the Liar and Accuser works extra hard when it comes to separating us from prayer. This is a battle, but the first step in winning it is recognizing it AS a battle, and identifying attacks and lies and traps. Next, we need to figure out how to defend ourselves with weapons of truth.

Coming Up: Ten Simple Truths to Hold on to in the Battle of Prayer

Related Links: 

A Ten-Year-Old Teaches Her Auntie To Pray 

You Are Delightful 

Stop Bothering God! 

Basics of Personal Prayer (Youtube video interview with my mum)

Hearing from God in Prayer (Youtube video interview with my mum)

Stop Bothering God!

It was the call I was both awaiting and dreading. My driving school called to say my driving test was finally scheduled (six months after actually doing the driving classes) for Monday, and practise was on Saturday afternoon. I was furious, even though I had been waiting to get it done. I had been down with the flu for the past week, it was pouring cats and dogs, and I couldn't remember how to drive.

I was filled with a sense of dread and gloom. Nothing about this call seemed propitious. Have you notice how physical sickness makes one even more prone to depression and anxiety? The Saturday practice began to seem like a mighty impassable mountain.

I knew what I had to do. I had to pray. I didn't feel like praying. What could God do about my stupid problems? Anyway the problem was probably all in my head, which didn't make it any smaller to me, but made it less likely that it was important enough to pray about. I once heard a priest say, "Stop bothering God with your problems." "God isn't someone who looks for parking space for you." "He's not some kind of genie who grants us wishes." "God isn't a vending machine." Any of these sound familiar?

And yet, and yet... Jesus is the one who said, "Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." (Lk 11:9 -10) Not to mention, crazy talk like, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you." (Jn 15:7)

He didn't have to say any of that. He didn't have to make extravagant promises. Why did He? St. John Marie Vianney said, "Our dear God loves to be bothered."

Over many years of trying to understand my God and my faith, I have come to believe (in spite of my changing moods) that God wants me to know of His personal love and concern for me, and THAT is why He wants me to come to Him with my seemingly small and silly problems. When I ask, my faith grows, and I come just a little closer to understanding the God of love, the God who enters into our world and problems to show us He is Emmanuel, 'God with us'.

I also realized that when I asked I needed to ask
a. with faith (even if just the size of a mustard seed)
b. with an openness to His will being different from my desires
c. with a detachment from the final outcome
d. with a greater love and focus on the Giver than on the gift

So I asked. I said, "Lord you know I'm scared of this driving practise and test. I ask that I will wake up feeling better and without fever on Saturday. I ask that the rain will stop on Saturday afternoon and the sun will come out so I can practise without a problem. I ask that the practise will be easy and driving will seem less scary."

The next morning I woke up without fever, feeling better. It was still a rainy day. My dad knew I was worried so he suddenly decided to take me for a half hour of driving practice. I had forgotten everything, but it was easier to remember with him than with a bunch of strangers from the driving school.

That afternoon I got ready to leave, but the rain was pouring down. Everything seemed cold, wet and dreary. I really, really did not want to leave the house. Everything within me rebelled against leaving. But I had to. Once again I prayed, this time aloud. "Lord, PLEASE let the rain slow down and stop for me. And let the sun come out!" I put on all my rain gear, got on to my two-wheeler, and started riding into the rain. I kept praying aloud as I rode (while noting that I've become one of those religious nuts constantly muttering prayers). And as I rode, the rain started slowing down. By the time I reached the ground for the practise, it was a slight drizzle.

The practise turned out to be super easy, and over in less than five minutes. My driver instructor told us that all we had to do was drive along the track in the shape of an eight, and they wouldn't ask any questions. I was able to do it very easily. As I left the ground to stop at the driving school office, the sun peeked out, and I realized all my fears and anxieties had dried up too.

I have seen my share of miracles, and yet I'm still hesitant to ask for them. But why not? Our dear Lord is waiting for us to give Him the precious gift of our expectant faith and trust.

Related Reading 

The Delicate Touches of Love 

Jesus Knows My Love Language

The Tale of the Free Wedding Dress

You Are Delightful

A couple of weeks ago, my fiancé, Joel, and I were attending a friend's wedding in Bangalore. We were staying at a hotel with the family and family friends of the groom. I didn't know any of them, and they only knew me as the fiancée of the groom's best friend. But one evening after we returned hand-in-hand from a pre-wedding party, an elderly friend of the family came up to Joel and said, "You are a very lucky man - I see the way she looks at you!"

Ugh, I didn't know whether to be totally embarrassed that apparently my face was an open book to the world at large, or to be pleased that the love I felt for him was not so deeply buried that no one could tell it existed (possible side-effects of the non-demonstrative British and Indian culture I grew up in).

Sunday's first reading at Mass was from Proverbs 8 and refers to the relationship between Jesus and His Father.: 'I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men.'

It's so much easier to think of God as a teacher, a coach, a formator, a guide; someone who is trying to make us better, working on us, challenging us, calling us on. And really, He is all of those things and does all of those things. He loves me enough to want what is best for me and to help me be all I can be.

But more foundational to the relationship He wants to have with me is mutual delight. He looks at me and takes pleasure in me being me, and in me being His. And that's how I feel around Joel. When I look at him, I smile because of who he is with all his quirks and personality traits and desires and hopes and interests and even imperfections, because this human being is an unrepeatable, interesting, multifaceted creation, and because this human being is MINE (or will be soon), entrusted to me by God.

I know it's easy enough to slip into a different way of viewing even the ones we love, to focus on their flaws, to see all the ways they need to improve, all the rough edges that need smoothing, and the dull edges that need sharpening, and suddenly they are a project instead of a person. We see that with parents and kids all the time. For some reason, when they are babies and toddlers, it's easier to just unashamedly delight in them, in their tiny little fingers and toes, in their gurgles and mispronounced words, in their cheeky grins and displays of affection. But pretty soon the easiest way to relate to them is by correcting them, teaching them, directing them, and improving them.

Even worse is when we start to see the people in our lives as a means to an end, as only interesting to us in as much as they are useful to us. When we overvalue the achievements of our children because they make us look good, when the good looks or success of our spouses or children or family members are more of a status symbol or a reason to boast, when their gifts can be used to further our goals, or when we only look at the other with approval and love when they are behaving in exactly the way we want, then we are guilty of using people instead of loving them.

How do we delight in the people in our lives? First, by remembering and experiencing the delight that God takes in YOU. You are delightful! Yes, you with the crooked teeth, and the tendency to argue and over-analyze, and break into song, and laugh at inappropriate moments. You with the social awkwardness, and the extra belly fat, and the big hugs, and the habit of tearing up every time you get excited abut something. You with the agonizing self-doubt, and the frizzy hair, and the snarky comebacks, and the terrible puns. You with the stick legs, and the love of baking and cats and code and cheesy TV shows. You with the little secret acts of kindness, and the tendency to overshare and over-schedule and be late to everything. You with the love of excel sheets, and over-planning, and micro-managing, and cleaning. YOU ARE DELIGHTFUL, just as you are with all the weird and wonderful and wise and whimsical traits and habits.

No, you are not perfect, far from it. No, God does not love your sins. But your sins are not YOU. Sometimes our sins can obscure our delightfulness, but it's still there. And when God looks at you, He sees the REAL you, not just your sins and failings. And He loves you, and delights in you.

Love should be expressed in delight. Simcha Fisher in an article about choosing the right spouse wrote, 'But, women: when you think of marrying the man you’re planning to marry, you should be delighted. Delighted! Are you delighted?'

When we learn to stop and bask in God's delight, we are far more able to delight in the people around us. I once asked a couple of friends three things they liked about themselves. It was surprising how good but how hard that exercise was. It's almost as if we think it's wrong to be delighted in. No wonder it's hard to delight in others.

So take some time to delight in the people around you. Hold back the words of correction and criticism or suggestions for improvement the next time they come to your lips. Just stop and look at them. Look at them and smile. Listen to them when they tell you what they're excited about. Tell them the things about them that give you pleasure. Remove the critical or corrective lenses through which you survey the world, and instead see people the way they are, as delightful children of God. Let's rediscover delight.

Related Reading

A Ten-Year-Old Teaches Her Auntie To Pray
To Be Someone's Darling
How To Love Well - Some Practical Tips

A Ten-Year-Old Teaches Her Auntie To Pray

After a cozy (if noisy) evening watching My Fair Lady with my family, we welcomed my mum back after a week away, and sat down to a late dinner of pork and beans. The conversation was lively, and my littlest niece aged 1.5 was getting louder and more emphatic as she yelled, “Mummy-O! Daddy-O! Nanny-O!” across the room at us. My oldest niece sat by me, and after dinner she curled into my lap. She’s ten years old and long and lanky now, so not all of her fit on me. But that didn’t stop her.

“Do kuru-kuru! Please! I’ll play with your hair in exchange… and give you a massage… and let you read me a story…”

“Oh you’ll LET me, will you?”

Kuru-kuru is a light scratching-stroking motion we do on my nieces’ arms or legs. It has been a comforting and soothing routine from the time they were tiny, often used at bedtime, but we hardly do it now that they are so much older. I started stroking her. After a moment she started smiling to herself, a smile that spilled out of her, like she couldn’t contain it.

“What?” I said. “Why are you smiling?”

“I’m so lucky to have an auntie like you.”

My own heart expanded and glowed.

What does this have to do with prayer? I’ve been attempting to have a personal prayer time since I was 14 years old. As a full-time Catholic volunteer, I am committed to having a daily prayer time. It’s practically a job requirement. I give talks about prayer, telling people “You can’t have a relationship with Jesus if you don’t spend time with Him daily.”

And yet, it’s still a struggle. I don’t run to prayer, and often think of many other things I would rather do. Prayer often feels like a chore, something to tick off a to-do list. I know and love Jesus, so why do I so often feel like avoiding prayer? Well, for one because ‘prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God.’ CCC 2725

I think the way I am tempted is to forget what prayer really is. I know enough to realize I need to show up for prayer and be consistent even when I don’t have good feelings or great reflections and insights – that God can still work in me as long as I’m willing to show up. But still once I’m there, I often feel like I need to DO the things, you know, thank Him, ask forgiveness, read Scripture, reflect, write something in my journal, ask for what I need. Not bad things. But it’s like going on a date and going through the motions. ‘According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.’ CCC 2562

Being with my niece helped me remember a retreat I attended some years ago. The speaker talked about the tendency in many Christians to focus on our work, our mission. We talk about being filled up and then go and empty ourselves, and then come back to God to be filled up again like filling petrol at a petrol pump. “But we’re not calling to leave the Father at all! We need to remember our MISSION comes from our IDENTITY and our IDENTITY comes from our RELATIONSHIP with the Father. We need to REMAIN within the embrace of the Father. It’s when we forget the order that we burn out. The order is always RELATIONSHIP-IDENTITY-MISSION. Imagine that the Father’s embrace is a big armchair. We constantly feel like we need to get up and go do stuff on our own. But the job of our community is to push us back into that chair, remind us where we need to be.”

As I turned to prayer that day, I set aside even my ‘prayer to-do-list’. I put on the song ‘Pieces’ from Bethel. And I gazed out of the window at the green outside and the sky beyond. I breathed in the cool air, and I leaned into the Lord. I just allowed Him to hold me. I let go of the burdens I was clinging to. I let the stress I wasn’t even aware of drain from my body. And I smiled up at Him. I felt so loved, so safe.

Why is prayer such a chore? Because I keep forgetting that it just means resting in the Father’s embrace, smiling up at Him and allowing Him to love me. It took my niece gazing up at me the same way to remind me yet again that it all comes back to love. That doesn’t mean prayer is easy. It’s still a battle. ‘Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort.’ CCC 2725

But the battle isn’t to achieve the most amazing prayer time, or to somehow make myself better at prayer. Instead the battle is to place myself in the arms of the Father, and remain there.

Related Reading 

To Be Someone's Darling 

The Time I Went on a Five Day Silent Retreat 

My Experiences With Anxiety and Peace

The Time I Went on a Five Day Silent Retreat

You'd assume for a self-identifying introvert, a five day silent retreat would have been super easy but those who know me, know that I am an externally processing introvert who talks nineteen to the dozen. And yet... five days of silence was very beautiful.

This retreat was an answer to prayer- for about six months I had felt God was telling me : 

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

Isaiah 43: 19a

"Great! I'm all for it," I told Him. "But I have no idea what that new thing is."

Of course a part of me was like, "Vocational fulfilment! Yay!" But that's just every Catholic single who think they are called to marriage.

He was like, "You'll see."

And I did.

The past week I felt like He was opening a door in my journey with Him, and saying, "We're not there yet. Let's go." What He said was so full of light and truth that it overshadowed every other desire and goal and dream for my life.

What am I talking about? There is no way I can share with you everything that I learned, and most likely even if I did, coming from a blog post it probably won't mean much to you. What I really want is for you to go on this silent retreat and find out for yourself, as you sit before the Blessed Sacrament chapel, the glass walls giving you a glimpse of hovering eagles at eye level, the river far below meeting the sea in the distance, as you listen to a Carmelite priest speak words of SOLID truth, practical wisdom, and poetic sweetness, revealing the heart of the God who desires to be known by you- as taught by Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint John of the Cross.

The second part of that bible verse was:

I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
...I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people,
 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

Isaiah 43: 19b-21

And the retreat was all about the river, the streams of living water which is the Presence of God coming to meet us in contemplation.

These are three insights that impacted me big time:

1. Any sensory pleasure I take that uses up hours and days of my life dulls my senses to God in prayer. I’m an obsessive TV serial watcher. I think I have an addictive personality. Luckily I don’t have TV in my volunteer post, but every time I go home, I binge watch hours and hours of some show or the other. Years ago it was LOST. It has been Downton Abbey, Gray’s Anatomy, The Mentalist, Castle, 24, House. Most of my life (until the Internet) I was a voracious reader, I could read for hours every day, and late into most nights. My latest obsessive behaviour has been reading Facebook comment threads from Simcha Fisher, one of my favourite Catholic bloggers. Her posts, and the comments that follow are witty, insightful, and thought-provoking- a feast for a Catholic INTJ’s mind. It all seems harmless, especially if the content of my latest obsession is clean, and it doesn’t interfere with my daily duties.

But this was the point- if my prayer is lifeless and dull, if I’ve lost my taste for prayer, it’s because my intellect and memory are constantly caught up in those pleasures. I am caught up in self-gratification, rather than being able to open myself to loving God and my neighbour in the present moment. The Lord is like, “If you allow those things to satisfy you, then where is there room for ME to satisfy you?” It’s like eating popcorn throughout the day, and when the feast arrives, you don’t have an appetite for it. So painful as it may seem, God is asking me to cut out some of my ‘harmless’ sensory pleasures… so I can relearn to take pleasure in His presence.

The cool thing was that actually happened at the retreat- I had never felt more joyful, peaceful and excited to just sit with Him in the chapel at random moments.

2. The way to go deeper in prayer isn’t some new meditation technique or effort at focus, but the way of charity, humility, detachment and ‘stealing moments’ of silence. Fr. A, who led the retreat was very clear- charity, the attitude that allows me to accept my brother or sister as he or she is, without judgment or analysis, is ESSENTIAL to experience God. Love cuts through my ego, my self-centredness, my judgment and makes a way for God to break through, and touch my deepest, innermost self. Saint Teresa of Avila said that the only sign that shows progress in prayer is that you accept your brother or sister in community. And love of course isn’t a sweet feeling, but a decision, and even a struggle- but a struggle that purifies. Only love can liberate me from ego. And a handy tip that helps me love people in spite of the way they treat me is: ‘There is no event that takes place without the knowledge of God.’ And therefore he has allowed this person, this event, this circumstance for some greater good- usually my own growth.

3. If my soul wants to be like a watered garden, I need to use the drip irrigation method, plus a morning and night watering: If I really want to grow in prayer, I MUST make time to meet Him not just once in the day, but for a chunk of time at the beginning and at the end, and frequently throughout the day, even for a few minutes at a time- singing hymns, practising the presence of God, doing an examen, just saying a few words of love. As most people who know me probably know, I’m one of the laziest people alive. Sloth in particular is my besetting sin- laziness in spiritual matters. I do the bare minimum. If I’m praying once a day, I think I’m doing GREAT. And yet, something has changed with this retreat. As Fr. A said, “You don’t have to do it. I can’t tell you you have to. But if you have a desire for God, you can do it!” And I can. If I can make time to check Facebook through the day, surely I can make time to turn my gaze to the Beloved.

There was SO much more. But I’m going to stop. You should go for this retreat. Seriously. If you live in India, take a week off and go. Leave me your email in the comments or contact me if you want details. Really. Do it.