How to Pray, When Prayer Seems Really Confusing?

You know, many of us embarked on our spiritual journeys filled with hope and certainty, only to find ourselves somedays with questions as the complexities of life unfolded. Do we still believe in prayer? Yes, but it can confusing and complicated. Do we believe God is with us and hears the cries of our hearts? We do… even when life’s tender and bewildering. Catherine McNiel, coauthor with Jason Hague of Mid-Faith Crisis, joins us on the farm today, vulnerably sharing her own complicated journey with prayer, from how it all started to how it’s going now. It’s my delight to welcome Catherine and Jason to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague

How did you learn to pray, way back when?

Many of us who first encountered God in the Inherited Faith stage of childhood were introduced to prayer as a time to talk to God. And we talked a lot.

The Bible tells us to bring all our prayers and petitions before God, knowing that God will meet our needs—so we did.

Before dinner, before bed, during Sunday school, we babbled on about our sick pets, our bumps and bruises, every vulnerable joy and sorrow in our young hearts.

Back then, God was something between a distant parent and Santa Claus—not really available but likely to provide what we needed if we told Him about it.

I was turning ten years old the first time I reconsidered this approach. Too excited to sleep the previous night, relishing my last hours in the single digits, my brain was spinning and summoned a long-buried memory. I jumped up wide awake, afraid for my life.

Years before, I had hatched a genius plan: choose a particular age, the definition of a long and fulfilling life, then earnestly pray God would allow me to die on the birthday of that year (after presents and cake, of course). This would take away all the guesswork and worry about unknowns like accidents, illness, and death. Why not lock in your future early on?

The ripe old age I chose was ten. Of course,

I had no context or life experience to inform this bold decision. And now, with just hours left to go on this earth, I leapt from bed and ran to find my parents.

Amazingly, they were unconcerned.

My tenth birthday came and went—cake, party, presents, lasagna dinner, all of it. No one died.

Yet my prayers had been earnest and consistent. I had prayed in faith, fully believing with all my heart that God would hear and grant my request. Like the righteous believer in James (a book I memorized word for word in fourth grade), I had asked
without wavering or doubting. Surely my prayers would be “powerful and effective” (James 5:16).

But since that day when my faith was strengthened by God’s failure to answer, there’s been so much water under the bridge.

I’ve been abandoned and deeply harmed by people who were supposed to love and protect me.

Felt all hope for goodness shatter around me.

Sat in the room while my best friends’ baby died in their arms.

Bristled with anger when a friend chirped, “Praise God!” upon finding a good parking spot while nearly ninety million displaced people in our world can’t find a home country.

Carried stories—my own and others’—almost too terrible to believe.

Yet, I’ve also seen long-unsolved ailments disappear from my body during prayer. Felt God draw so near to me it changed my life’s direction.

Experienced spiritual and emotional healing from wounds I didn’t even know I had. Been prompted to do things so clearly God’s voice was almost audible.

Seen those in desperate need provided for in nearly supernatural ways.

Thus far into my journey, it’s not God, or even prayer I doubt, so much as our confidence in prayer, the hubris of our own causation, and our own willingness to overlook profound suffering in the world.

“I felt so isolated in those months, so desperate for a friend to cut a hole in the roof and lower me down to Jesus.“

When a friend’s flight delivers her to vacation safe and sound, she posts to Facebook that “God knew how much I needed restful time away.” But another friend texts me that, due to cancellations from the same airport on the same day, she missed getting to her sister’s deathbed in time to say goodbye. Well, if God is to be praised in the first instance, is He to be blamed in the second?

What are we supposed to make of a prayer-theology so confident in God’s will and our prayer-to-result causation, and so unaware of our own privilege and dumb luck? Do we really think God is granting some of us luxury items simply because we asked—and does this mean that victims of genocide and sexual assault just didn’t have enough prayer coverage for God to act on their behalf?

A few years ago, I suffered a traumatic brain injury that turned out to be far worse than I realized at the time. What my doctors pronounced would take weeks to heal stretched into months, then years. At first, friends were eager to pray for me, asking to place their hands on my head and in faith ask God for my healing. I was grateful for their care, and grateful for their prayers. I craved it, actually, nearly crying with relief each time someone offered. I felt so isolated in those months, so desperate for a friend to cut a hole in the roof and lower me down to Jesus.

“This season of suffering isn’t what you need liberation from—this season of suffering is the liberation.”

But the moment my praying friends opened their eyes I saw them look expectantly at me: Did it work? Had they done it? Was I healed? Did it work?

I was not healed, that part was easy to answer.

I believe God can heal, and I think it’s good to ask for healing—but I didn’t see it that day. My pain and long-term damage did not lift even one iota during or after these heartfelt petitions. I could not produce the evidence my friends so badly hoped to see—and the burden of being asked for it so often added to my burden.

But I would not say those prayers didn’t “work.” They bonded me to my community when I needed companionship—at least, to whatever degree people stuck by me when I had no fruit of healing to offer them. Prayer allowed me to feel cared for, not entirely alone in my darkness and fears. And prayer bonded me to God when I was desperate for Him. 

As I spent hour upon hour alone in the dark so my brain could heal, as it became abundantly clear God was not using prayer to magically fix things, these worship lyrics lingered in my addled brain day after long day: “I’m no longer a slave to fear; I am a child of God.” 

I could almost hear God’s voice saying, “This season of suffering isn’t what you need liberation from—this season of suffering is the liberation.”

Honestly, I have no idea what this all ultimately means. I didn’t understand it then, and I’m not sure I understand it now. But while prayer did not make me healthy (years later, I’m still not fully recovered), prayer — God Himself — did get me through.

“…if that prayer was enough for Jesus at his darkest hours, it’s good enough for us in ours: God, here I am.“

Maybe Jesus’ prayers in the garden and Jesus’ prayers on the cross are the examples we need in this mid-faith season of suffering and doubt. Jesus begged for His suffering to ease—begged so hard and long that His anguish looked and felt like bleeding, like dying. But His suffering did not ease, not in the slightest—nor would it in this life. Later that night, He prayed again, this time asking for help to surrender: “If it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matthew 26:42).

Just a few hours later, Jesus’ final words were these: “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

And some days that might be as far as you can go. But if that prayer was enough for Jesus at his darkest hours, it’s good enough for us in ours: God, here I am. So tired, so worn out. Far too exhausted to hold on to hope, with all this pain and sorrow still here. I put myself into Your hands.

Lord, into Your hands I commit … all of this.

That’s a prayer we can honestly repeat every day.

Adapted from Mid-Faith Crisis by Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague. ©2024 by Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com . 

Catherine McNiel is a chaplain, author, editor, and speaker searching for the creative, redemptive work of God in our ordinary lives. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband, three children, and one enormous garden. Catherine holds an MA in human service counseling and is finishing a Master of Divinity at North Park Theological Seminary. Her previous books include Fearing Bravely, All Shall Be Well, and Long Days of Small Things, which was an ECPA finalist for New Author.

In Mid-Faith Crisis: Finding a Path Through Doubt, Disillusionment, and Dead Ends Catherine and coauthor, Jason Hague, guide readers through the complex landscape of doubt and disillusionment. They reassure us that the crisis of faith is not an endpoint but a transformative stage that can lead to a more sincere and robust belief system.

If you’re in the midst of a spiritual reevaluation, Mid Faith Crisis will serve as a beacon of hope, reminding us that while the road may be rocky, the destination holds the promise of deeper faith and connection.

{Our humble thanks to InterVarsity Press for their partnership in today’s devotional.}