The problem, all too often, is that we don’t see the results of our prayers—not the immediate workings of the Spirit groaning in and through us nor the future outcomes our prayers may be a means of accomplishing. We talk to God and wonder if we’re just talking to the walls, like someone muttering in the cell of an asylum.

You need to persevere in munching your way through that bag of chips. You need to persevere through another episode of that show you love. You need to persevere in taking a nap on a Sunday afternoon.

These instructions sound odd, don’t they? It’s because we reserve the word “perseverance” for difficult tasks—something that doesn’t come easy yet brings great reward.

Why Prayer Is Hard

One of the best ways to introduce people to spiritual practices like prayer, Bible reading, and churchgoing is not by overselling how easy it is to adopt these habits but by reminding people of just how challenging they can be. Spiritual habits are hard. They require effort and discipline.

The New Testament urges us to persevere in prayer because it’s so easy not to pray. When Jesus told us to “pray always and not give up” (Luke 18:1), he implied that giving up would be the easier path. He told the disciples to watch and pray in Gethsemane because he knew how easily they could fail in their attention and fall asleep (22:40, 46).

When Paul echoed these commands—calling us to “be persistent in prayer” (Rom. 12:12) or to “devote” ourselves to prayer, staying “alert” in it “with thanksgiving” (Col. 4:2)—it was because he knew how easy it’d be to slacken the rope, to drift from attentiveness, to diminish our devotion. In the face of struggle, we’re reminded to “pray constantly” (1 Thess. 5:17), to press on in faith, even when the answers seem delayed.

These aren’t the commands of a cheerless moralist instructing us to eat our oatmeal just because it’s good for us. They’re more like the encouragement we get from a coach guiding us through a grueling game or a captain leading the charge when we’re tempted to give up the fight. That’s important: Prayer is part of the battle—an essential aspect of the Christian life, not a prelude to whatever we envision as real ministry. As Vance Pitman puts it, “We don’t pray before we work. Prayer is the work, and then God works.”

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