Too stressed to pray.

Since I was asked to write about being too stressed to pray, I’m gonna… but I admit my advice may be inadequate, because I don’t personally suffer from this problem. Whenever I’m stressed, my knee-jerk reaction is to pray.

Not hit things, not flee, definitely not drink or get stoned—pray. Whenever they’re in a jam, plenty of people immediately call out to God; even atheists will do this, even though they absolutely don’t wanna, even though they’re pretty sure nobody’s listening, because they were raised to do this. When I was growing up, the people around me were predominately Christian; when they were in a jam, they prayed. I mimicked them; I prayed too. And still do.

And I’m aware not everybody was raised Christian like me, so they didn’t develop this knee-jerk reaction. When they get stressed out, their first response is to do the other things I just listed. Punch the wall—but ideally some other, healthier form of physical expression, like going for a run; like going to the gym and hitting the heavy bag. I got a lot of alcoholics in the family, and I know they immediately turn to drink. I have coworkers who are stoned most of the time, and marijuana is how they deal with stress too. I had a friend in college who handled her stress by having lots of sex with her boyfriend. If you grew up with unhealthy methods of stress relief, stands to reason you’d turn to them in a crisis.

But once you become Christian, you gotta unlearn the unhealthy methods, and learn to turn to God.

So my recommendation? Practice turning to God whenever you’re dealing with small stressors. When little things bug you, remind yourself to pray. Pray like that regularly enough, and when the bigger things wallop you, prayer won’t be the last thing on your mind. It may not be the first—you’re working on it—but your reaction certainly won’t be, “Prayer? Who has the time? I’m dealing with a crisis here.”

(Oh, and go to the gym too. That actually works a lot better than you’d think.)

Little leaps of faith.

1 Peter 5.6-7 NIV

6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

One of the devotionals I read—and really oughta stop reading, ’cause the author is kind of a dick—is actually no help on this subject. The author is too intent on rebuking people for not turning to God in times of trouble. No compassion; no understanding that maybe people didn’t grow up Christian like he did, and still haven’t fully experienced God’s care for us.

’Cause that’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it? If we don’t turn to God when we’re stressed out, it’s because we honestly don’t see how prayer could help. It’s not practical. It’s like when politicians offer “thoughts and prayers” and nothing happens; they presume nothing’ll happen here either. Prayer is just a delay tactic, when really what we oughta do is… well, anything else.

First lemme remind you politicians who offer their prayers instead of doing something, are hypocrites. They’re the worst examples of how and when to pray; they’re only doing it for public acclaim, exactly as Jesus tells us not to do. And since they can’t be arsed to obey Jesus, you can safely ignore them and their bad examples.

Prayer requests are an act of faith. You’re trusting that God is actually listening. You’re trusting that God will actually respond—sometimes with yes, sometimes no, but he will respond either way. Y’might not have a lot of faith that God’ll do anything whatsoever… but you’re learning. Growing your faith takes time and patience.

But when we’re stressed, patience is in short supply. We’d like prayer results right freakin’ now, please—and our extra agitation admittedly makes God hard to hear, ’cause hearing him means we have to stop, slow down, meditate, concentrate on what he wants to tell us, then go confirm he really did tell us what we think he told us. Stressed-out people seldom wanna take the time to do all that.

So stressed-out prayer is actually a greater act of faith. Especially when we legitimately expect God to answer, and legitimately intend to act on God’s response. And I wanna encourage people to tackle prayer when they’re stressed out—not lambaste them for not yet trusting God enough to automatically do that. It’s good that you’re trying! God appreciates that you’re trying. Doesn’t mean he’ll automatically grant you an answer you want—but he will answer, and he’ll use these circumstances to show you he answers. Just take that first step, and trust him enough to pray when you’re stressed.