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What to Do When Your Prayers Feel Rote · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: Try something for a second. Pick a simple word. Any
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  word. Let's say the word door. Now, say it out loud. Over and
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  over. Door, door, door. Keep going. Past twenty, past thirty.
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  Somewhere in there, something odd happens. The word starts to
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  come apart in your mouth. It stops sounding like a word at
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  all. Just a strange noise you're making with your lips and tongue.
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  For a few seconds, door means nothing. You know it's a word.
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  You use it every day. But repeated enough times, right in
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  a row, it turns to gibberish. And this is a known effect, and
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  it happens to almost everyone. Scientists have even studied why.
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  We'll come back to what's going on in your brain. But first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger.
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  Every so often, I catch myself repeating the same phrases,
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  praying on a loop, saying words I've said a thousand times
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  without even thinking sometimes. When I notice it, I have to stop
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  and consciously make my prayers conversational again. Talking to
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  God like He's a person in the room instead of reciting lines
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  at Him. It's a normal part of praying for a lifetime, and I
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  don't think it says anything about the state of your faith,
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  necessarily. And maybe you know the feeling. You bow your head,
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  and the same words come out that always come out. The phrases you
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  learned years ago. The ones you reach for at meals and at
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  bedtime. And somewhere along the way, you stopped hearing them.
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  You can't remember the last time one of those prayers meant
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  something as you said it. can start to feel fake, like you're
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  performing a script for an audience of one, and you wonder
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  if God is even paying attention to the words that have gone this
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  stale. Jesus said something about this kind of praying, and
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  it might surprise you where He aimed it. Listen to Matthew 6-7.
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  Vain repetitions. Empty phrases piled up. Jesus is describing
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  people who thought the trick to prayer was volume. Say enough
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  words, repeat them enough times, and surely God will be impressed
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  into answering. He's telling His followers not to pray like that.
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  God isn't moved by word count. Here's what He wants instead.
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  Look at the next line in that chapter where He teaches them to
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  pray to their Father. And that's the key word, Father. Jesus
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  wanted prayer to be a conversation with a Father who
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  already knows you in your own words about your own life, the
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  way a child talks to a Father who knows Him. Now, hear the
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  good news in this because I think it takes the pressure off.
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  If your prayers have gone rote, your faith isn't necessarily in
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  trouble. The same thing happened to the word door. The meaning
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  wore off from repetition. And the fix is pretty simple. Slow
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  down and say something that you really mean. You can stop right
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  in the middle of a stale prayer and say, God, I don't want to
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  just recite at you. I want to talk to you. And help me mean
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  this again. Say that. And you've already prayed one of the truest
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  prayers there is. God hears it. Because God was never listening
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  for polished language or a high word count. He was listening for
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  you, the person behind the words. Here's what's happening in your
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  with that word. The effect has a name. It's called semantic
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  satiation. A researcher named Leon Jacobovitz James described
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  it back in the 1960s. When you repeat a word fast enough and
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  often enough, the part of your brain that supplies its meaning
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  gets tired it briefly stops firing. The sound keeps coming
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  out, but the meaning drops out from under it. And here's why
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  that matters for anyone who prays. The same thing can happen
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  to the phrases you say to God. Pray the same words the same way
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  for long enough, and they can go the of that repeated word still
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  coming out of your mouth with the meaning worn off from it.
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  When that happens, your faith is probably still fine. But your
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  words just need to slow down and fill back up. Your words just
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  need to slow down. I know how simple that is. The problem was
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  never you, and it was never God. It was repetition wearing the
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  meanings off of good words. So don't when your go flat and it
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  seems like you've lost their meaning. Don't quit. Just slow
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  down and tell your Father what's true today. And the will fill
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  back Here's today's challenge. The next time you pray and hear
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  yourself reciting, stop incense. finish the phrase on autopilot.
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  Instead, take a breath and say the next thing in your own words,
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  like you're talking to someone who loves you and is right there.
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  Tell him one thing about your day, and if all you can manage
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  is God, my words have gone stale and I want them to mean
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  something again. Pray that. He'd rather have that one sentence
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  than a hundred polished ones. Father, thank you that you're
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  not impressed by our word counts and never put off by our worn
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  out phrases. Some of us have been praying on autopilot for a
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  long time, and we want to mean it again. Teach us to talk to
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  you simply in our own words, like the children you've called
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  us. Where the meaning is worn off, fill it back up. And thank
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  you that you're listening for us, not for the perfect words. In
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  Jesus' name, amen. If this episode encouraged you today,
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  would you share it with someone who might need to hear it? Just
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  go to dailydevotionsforbusylives.com
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  slash 310 and copy the link. It only takes a second, and it
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  might make a real difference in someone's day. Thanks for
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  joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, when
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  your prayers go rote, your faith is probably fine, and your words
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  just need to slow down and fill back up because God is listening
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  for you, not for the perfect phrases. Come back next time for
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  more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.
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  Until then, God bless, and have a great day.