When it's hard to pray, pray hard! Well, it made a good bumper sticker, but it's definitely a tough creed to live by. Prayer is definitely a battleground. It might help to identify some of the battlefronts.

1. The battle to make yourself pray.

Face it. Prayer does not come naturally for us. We like to be independent - self-reliant. We can take care of ourselves.

Besides that, prayer is work. It is a discipline that does not come easily. We more naturally will act rather than pray. We feel like we're doing something when we act. But in prayer, we feel helpless.

We must train ourselves to go to God. We must discipline ourselves to pray and depend on Him.

2. The battle to keep praying.

What happens when you pray? You fall asleep; your mind wanders; you think of something else you need to do; the phone rings. All kinds of things will come up to interrupt your prayer. We must discipline ourselves to stay at it. Stay focused.

3. The battle to pray until you are through.

We're too quick about things. We are not used to staying at something like prayer for long periods of time. We can play games, or watch television, or work for longs periods of time and get lost in those activities. But prayer is different. That is because there is an enemy who doesn't want you to pray, and because your flesh doesn't want to pray, and because prayer requires effort. Why do we not get lost in prayer more often? Because we have not learned to cherish and enjoy prayer.

4. The battle to continue to pray.

We lose interest, we forget to pray, we fall back into old patterns, we give up too easily. We must see pray like training for a marathon or some other difficult task. It takes skill to pray. It takes tenacity -- stick-to-it-tiveness. It's hard to stay at it. Remember, you can't grow a tree immediately. It takes time. So does prayer.

Let me illustrate: I need some shade trees at my house, but I haven't planted any, because I don't know if I will live there long enough to see them grow big enough to be useful. You see, I'd like to live closer to the church, and I keep telling myself that. I've been putting it off for 8 years. Sometimes we put off prayer for just as silly reasons.

5. The battle to not be discouraged.

We so often think, "Well this is not working. This isn't accomplishing much." How do you know that? We must learn to continue in prayer. Remember Daniel! He prayed 21 days before he got an answer. Had he given up, he would not have received his answer.

6. The battle to accept God's answers when they are no the answers we were looking for.

Things are not always as simple as we wish they were. We don't always understand what God is doing. We don't always agree with God. Prayer is not a magic bag that we can just pull things out of at will. Prayer depends on a lot of various factors. Sometimes you have to keep on praying even when you're not sure God is listening.

7. The battle to believe that prayer is the best course of action.

Sometimes we are tempted to think there is some other way to approach our problems. We think there is something else we can do. Essentially, we think we can do it better than God sometimes. I know if I was God I would do things different. But then, how messed up would this world be if you or I were in charge?