Stuck Wheels and Perseverance in Prayer
Sometimes, I’m just not feeling it.
I believe in God, love God, and seek communion with God. But sometimes … my prayers might as well come from an automaton, and my prayer life is like “Aarrgghhh.” Times like these, I don’t really want to pray. I’m tired, I’m cranky, or I’d rather be doing other things, and I turn to thoughts of God reluctantly, sometimes almost painfully. It’s like I’m stuck. I’m a stuck wheel that just can’t seem to roll.
Mature enough, now, to recognize this and not give up on prayer entirely, I understand that I need some divine intervention. I need help to continue moving forward in my relationship with God. I can’t get unstuck on my own. But asking for God to help me is a prayer, isn’t it? So how do I pray for God’s help when I don’t want to pray?
That thought is enough. That heavy sigh, that feeling of exasperation, that reluctant sorta-kinda turn is enough. That bodily reaction of something very close to aching pain when I halfheartedly mumble a prayer or that thick kind of numbness when I momentarily wish I could pray is enough to begin the healing. It’s like a tiny spray of WD-40 in the hands of the Holy Spirit (if the Holy Spirit had hands) aimed directly at my stuckness. But just like when we oil a stuck wheel, the free, easy movement doesn’t happen instantly. That oil needs to get worked into the rough places, the dry, cracked, rusty places, the bald squeezed-together places in order for the desired effects to be achieved.
So I grind on. I have to wait for free and easy movement in my prayers again, but I can’t wait without trying to make forward progress. Patient perseverance (or even stubborn persistence) is needed to bear the boredom, the ache, the heavy reluctance — the grind — until I am free again. Without that grind, I will never become unstuck. Trusting in the goodness of God, I let the Holy Spirit work in me, work deep down in me as I continually try to pray, even just a little, letting God’s grace into all of the places that resist.
And so we persevere in prayer, all of us. Sometimes we go without praying for a long time, and we are very rusty indeed. But the Holy Spirit can help us break that rust off when we cooperate, when we even just make that sorta-kinda turn toward prayer, over and over, and over and over again, until we are free and clear. When our prayer life is active and sincere, we are grateful and joyful — but, inevitably, we’re dry again. In mechanical things, oil is repeatedly needed for proper maintenance of all the works. Our prayer life is not much different, no matter how holy or lowly we may be.
Lent is about halfway through as I write this. My prayer right now is that we all persevere in our turning to God, in our movement to deeper relationship with Him.
PS. There are much deeper understandings and inspiration regarding dryness in prayer, like The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, to name just one resource given to us by the Saints. But this little stuck wheel analogy helped me recently. And I’m grateful for that.
© 2024 Christina Chase
Feature Photo by Chris Haws on Unsplash
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Christina Chase View All
Although crippled by disease, I'm fully alive in love. I write about the terrible beauty and sacred wonder of life, while living with physical disability and severe dependency. A revert to the Catholic faith through atheism, I'm not afraid to ask life's big questions. I explore what it means to be fully human through my weekly blog and have written a book: It's Good to Be Here, published by Sophia Institute Press.
Christina Chase 
I totally understand! I have been praying for the conversion of my neighbors hearts for 24 years now and nothing has changed. I always feel like just gving up but I keep on. Not sure if it will happen in my life time but eventually I know their hearts will be converted. It’s just very frustrating and hurtful. I just keep saying Jesus I trust in you.
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Your comment might inspire a whole other post about praying for the conversion of others! God definitely wants us to do this, His Church encourages us to do this, but as you have shown in your comment it can be very difficult, frustrating, and even painful. I admire your perseverance! It truly is a virtue. The faith that you have that their hearts will eventually be converted is awesome — and right. Perhaps that faith helps with the perseverance?
Have you ever heard of the Surrender Novena? Your reflection reminded me of it. I just learned about it a week and 1/2 ago. It’s along the divine mercy understanding/line of “Jesus, I trust in you.” (Trust has always been a challenge for me.) The repeated prayer is, “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!” https://catholicexchange.com/the-surrender-novena-let-jesus-take-care-of-everything/
God works in mysterious ways and though it may seem that nothing has changed for your neighbors, only God knows what is happening in their hearts and, yes, He will take care of everything. Our prayers never go unanswered. I’m adding a little prayer now your many, many prayers that your neighbors’ hearts will be softened to receive the Holy Spirit’s inspiration.
Thank you for reflecting with me!
Pax Christi
Christina
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Christina, you touch my heart each time I read your posts, but some days, like today, your writing was felt deep in my soul- I sometimes feel alone in my struggles with my faith journey – after reading your post I feel a deep healing – thank you so much –
Theresa
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I’m coming to understand more and more the importance of having relationships with fellow believers — and of honestly bearing our hearts to one another. Jesus gave His apostles to each other, gave His disciples to each other, so that we could be there for one another and build each other up. I know there are some great lines from Scripture to illustrate this, but I’ve never been good at remembering chapter and verse! Or even words, for that matter 🙂
All this to say that I’m very glad my reflection touched you, Theresa, and made you see that you are not alone. Your comment has done the same for me — thank you!
Pax Christi
Christina
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Christina- I was thinking… you should gather all your post writings and put them in a book- called Christina’s reflections… – I’ve found myself searching for some of your past posts, but would love to have them in a book to reflect back on. I’m sure others would feel the same. I honestly wish I had the chance to meet you in person! You’ve touch my life in many ways- and I’ve never met you. I still think it’s Gods amazing intervention how I randomly came across your book on Amazon while searching the Jesus sacred heart of Jesus. Your book came at such a challenging time in my life –
In my eyes you’ll be a saint ❤️Theresa
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I agree with Theresa. I have a hard time reading on a computer screen and prefer a book or my paper white Kindle.
Bernadette
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Bernadette, I hope you’ve been able to read It’s Good to Be Here, which contains a few of my blog posts. I will give more serious consideration to perhaps a series of books compiling my posted reflections. Thank you for reflecting with me!
Pax Christi
Christina
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Yes I do. I print out the pages. Thanks for asking.
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God works in mysterious ways! Even to the fact that, although you have never met me in person, you met and know a very good friend of mine, Megan Gannon!
I would put a book of some of my reflections together but … how do I choose which reflections? I have hundreds of them. Please do tell me your thoughts on how I might proceed — thank you!
Pax Christi
Christina
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