It’s happened to the best of us. You find yourself falling asleep every time you set your mind to pray and crack open the Bible. Or you’ve been so discouraged by the unsuccessful prayer attempts, that you don’t even set aside alone time with Jesus anymore.

You know how much you need God’s intimate presence, but your spirit man has just gone dull. And you didn’t even see it coming! You’re wondering, “how did I end up here after being so high on God’s love a few weeks ago??”

No need to feel guilty or believe the devil’s lie that this Christian walk is not for you. However, you will need to get intentional about changing some things if you want things to change. If you are in Christ, you are in a spiritual war. Therefore, your emotions will try subtle ways to sabotage your spirit man taking over.

[bctt tweet=”Your flesh is used to being in control, so you must continually remind it of its new management.”]

In addition to asking God for specific help in this area, below are a few strategies that help me shake my spirit man out of this lull:

1) Kneel while praying or reading.

It’s not old fashioned, and it actually works. Your body’s position helps command your mind’s focus and attentiveness. Everyone is running to yoga to experience this truth, but the Bible already gives us powerful examples that have stood the test of time.

On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” Then [Jesus] withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed. – Luke 22:40-41

*Here’s a bonus, raising your hands as an act of surrender stirs your spirit to cry out for God’s help. So don’t be afraid to go for it and wave your hands in the air like you really DO care.*

If your knees start whining real loud, sit on a hard surface but not next to anything comfortable. Hide your pillows, hide your blankets, because sleep’s attacking everybody out here.

2) Walk around or pace while praying.

It sounds simple but your comfort zone will fight to convince you that this is unnecessary. Yet, those countless quiet time naps you’ve experienced prove otherwise. Drastic results call for drastic measures. And when God calls us to move mountains with our prayers, we can’t afford to play with that authority. So tell laziness to shut up and tell your body to get up and move back in position. Your Commander in Chief is in the room, so stand at attention to receive.

3) Pray or read Scripture with an audible voice.

It’s easy for thoughts of hunger or worry to kidnap your prayers while they’re still roaming around in your mind. However, it gets harder for distractions to pull your mouth off track if you’re in the middle of saying something out loud. So chat it up and vocalize your needs and requests. Plus, practicing this with Bible readings will help you get comfortable declaring God’s Word over your circumstances throughout the day.

4) Listen to an audio Bible to jumpstart your motivation to read.

If I can’t get my mind to focus enough to read, I’ll play the chapters on my phone at first. Eventually, my curiosity is peaked enough to jump in and start reading myself. Or I’ll get moved to research something that stood out to me as interesting or unclear. I personally love “Bible.is” because the voices aren’t monotone, but actually try to impersonate the mood or tone of the storyline. The app is also free and available on Apple and Android phones. You may download it here.

Are there other tips that help you maximize your prayer time? Share it below in the comments! You never know who will benefit.

Love you lionheart 🙂