When prayer seems pointless…

The most frustrating thing I find about praying is it’s lack of immediate results. Or rather, what I perceive as a lack of results. I’ve gotten so accustomed to instantaneous feedback that when I don’t see the fruits of prayer right away I become frustrated.

Then there is praying for your enemies.

In most cases “enemies” are just your typical run of the mill jerk faces one encounters on any given day. They are the difficult people we are forced to interact with and who we’d rather drink poison than pray for.

But we pray for them anyway. We pray that Baby Jesus makes them nicer or that whatever it is causing them to behave like jerk-faces ceases to be a factor in their lives.

Personally, I don’t pray for my enemies to be blessed or anything, because I am not a living saint, but I don’t pray for them to be smote either. At least not anymore. Because it never happens.

You want to know what does happen? My enemies may never change, but what changes instead is how I react to them. It’s really hard, like impossibly hard, to go on hating someone that you pray for regularly.

I suppose that’s the point and the reason we are encouraged to pray without ceasing. In all things pray. Even when the results are not immediate, pray. Even if we think it’s all pointless, pray.

Something about your situation will eventually change. The problem may not miraculously resolve itself over night but how you react to it will.

So just keep plugging away at your prayer life.