Prayer Guilt?

In this blog we hear from Fitfish Life Coach and Ministry Leader Sharon, who led the talks at our November 2025 retreat:

Over a weekend we delved into the topic of prayer, thinking about opening the conversation, deepening the dialogue and hearing the whisper of God.

As I prepared to speak at the weekend, drawing on resources from the ‘Practicing the Way’ Course and Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton, I found myself getting re-energised by prayer.

Often, I think about prayer and I feel guilty – I don’t do it enough, other people are better at it – and so on, but in reality, God just wants us to spend time with him.

Mother Teresa was once asked, ‘When you pray, what do you say to God?’ Her response was humbling – and challenging … ‘I don’t ask, I listen!’

I was equally challenged by a quote from Richard Foster, who, when writing about intercessory prayer (asking for others), said, ‘If we truly love people, we will desire far more for them than it is within our power to give them, and this will lead us to prayer. Intercession is a way of loving others.’

It can be tricky – devastating even – when prayers are not answered in a way we would want them to be. 

Many of us will carry the pain of prayers unanswered – or those moments when we want to ask, ‘But why, God?’

When we stop and think about it – in those big, life-defining moments there often are no answers which will make it all ok.

Instead, it might be a daily decision to sit with the mystery and remember the numerous times when God has been faithful – and know that the God who was faithful in the good times is still faithful and holds us in the tough times.

As I have delved into the subject of prayer over the last few weeks, I have been reminded again of how, for Jesus, retreating to spend time with the Father was everything.

It was a rhythm which resourced the times in between – and there was an unwavering belief in the importance of that.

So this weekend, perhaps take a few moments to reflect on these 3 questions:

·       How is your prayer life at the moment?

·       What is God drawing your attention to?

·       What’s one small change you might make or experiment you might try to go deeper?

John Mark Comer suggests that ‘prayer is our opportunity to partner with God to bend the arc of human history.’

Wow! I think that’s the sort of prayer life I want to develop.