Here are the 18 excuses for not praying

How many times have we heard our friends say it! And how many times have we said it too! And we put aside our relationship with the Lord for reasons like these ...

We want it or not, we all see each other (to a greater or lesser extent) reflected in these 18 excuses. We hope that what we will say is useful in order to explain to your friends why they are not enough and why you can deepen how indispensable prayer is in our life.

1 I will pray when I have more time, now I am busy
ANSWER: Do you know what I discovered in life? That the ideal and perfect time to pray does not exist! You always have something to do, an urgent thing to solve, someone waiting for you, a complicated day in front of you, many responsibilities ... Rather, if one day you will find that you have time left, worry! You are not doing something well. The best time to pray is today!

2 I only pray when I feel it, because doing it without feeling it is a very hypocritical thing
ANSWER: Quite the opposite! Praying when you feel like it is very simple, anyone does it, but praying when you don't feel like it, when you are not motivated, this is heroic! It is also much more meritorious, because you won yourself, you had to fight. It is a sign of the fact that what moves you is not only your will, but love for God.

3 I would like ... but I don't know what to say
ANSWER: I believe that God anticipated, because he already knew that this would happen to us and left us with a very valid help: the psalms (which are a part of the Bible). They are prayers composed by God himself, because they are the Word of God, and when we recite the psalms we learn to pray with the same words of God. We learn to ask him for our needs, to give him thanks, to praise him, to show him our repentance, to manifest our joy to him. Pray with the Holy Scriptures and God will put the words on your mouth.

4 Today I'm too tired to pray
ANSWER: Well, it means that you had a day when you gave yourself, you tried very hard. You definitely need to rest! Rest in prayer. When you pray and meet with God, you go back to connecting with yourself, God gives you the peace that perhaps you did not have on a busy day. It helps you see what you experienced during the day but in a different way. It renews you. Prayer does not exhaust you, but it is precisely what renews your inner strength!

5 When I pray I do not "feel" anything
ANSWER: It may be, but there is something you cannot doubt. Even if you don't feel anything, prayer is changing you, it is making you better and better, because the encounter with God transforms us. When you meet a very good person and listen to him for a while, something good about her remains in you, let alone if it is God!

6 I am too sinful to pray
ANSWER: Perfect, welcome to the club! In reality we are all very sinners. This is precisely why we need prayer. Prayer is not for the perfect, but for sinners. It is not for those who already have everything, but for those who discover they are in need.

7 I believe that when I pray I waste my time, and I prefer to help others
ANSWER: I propose something to you: do not oppose these two realities, do both, and you will see that when you pray your ability to love and help others grows a lot, because when we are in contact with God the best of ourselves comes out!

8 What do I pray for if God never answers me? He doesn't give me what I ask him
ANSWER: When a child asks his parents all the time for sweets and candies or all the games in the shop, the parents do not give him everything he asks for, because in order to educate one must teach how to wait. Sometimes God doesn't give us everything we ask him because He knows what's best for us. And sometimes not having everything, feeling some need, enduring some suffering helps us to leave a little the comfort in which we live and to open our eyes to the essentials. God knows what he gives us.

9 God already knows what I need
ANSWER: It is true, but you will see that it will do you a great good. Learning to ask makes us easier at heart.

10 This story of repeating prayers seems absurd to me
ANSWER: When you love someone, have you never asked yourself how many times have you told them that you love them? When you have a good friend, how many times do you call him to chat and go out together? A mother to her son, how many times does she repeat the gesture of stroking and kissing him? There are things in life that we repeat often and and they never tire or bore, because they come from love! And love gestures always bring something new with them.

11 I don't feel the need to do it
ANSWER: It happens for many reasons, but one of the most frequent today is that we forget to feed our spirit in everyday life. Facebook, occupations, boyfriends, school, hobbies ... we are full of things, but none of these help us to keep quiet inside us to ask ourselves the fundamental questions: who am I? I'm happy? What do I want from my life? I believe that when we live more in tune with these questions, the hunger for God appears naturally ... What if it doesn't appear? Ask for it, pray and ask God for the gift of feeling hungry for his Love.

12 I pray better when I have a "hole" in the day
ANSWER: Do not give God what is left of your time! Don't leave him the crumbs of your life! Give him the best of you, the best moment of your life, when you are more lucid and more awake! Give God the best of your life, not what's left of you.

13 Praying bores me a lot, it should be more fun
ANSWER: Do your math and you will see that in reality the most important things in life are not very funny, but how important and necessary! How much we need it! Maybe praying doesn't amuse you, but how much your heart fills you! What do you prefer?

14 I do not pray because I do not know if it is God who answers me or I am the one who gives me the answers
ANSWER: When you pray with the Holy Scriptures, meditating on the Word of God, you can have a very great certainty. What you are hearing are not your words, but it is the same Word of God that is speaking to your heart. There is no doubt. It is God who is speaking to you.

15 God doesn't need my prayers
ANSWER: It is true, but how happy he will feel seeing that his son remembers him! And don't forget that in reality the one who needs it most is you!

16 Why pray if I already have everything I need?
ANSWER: Pope Benedict XVI said that the Christian who does not pray is a Christian at risk, and it is true. Those who do not pray are in an imminent risk of losing their faith, and the worst part is that it will happen little by little, without realizing it. Pay attention that, to think you have everything, you don't remain without what matters most, that is, God in your life.

17 There are already many people praying for me
ANSWER: How nice that you have many people who love you and really care. I believe then that you have many reasons to pray too, starting with all those who already pray for you. Because love is paid for with more love!

18 It's not easy to say ... but I don't have a church nearby
ANSWER: Praying in a church is nice, but it is not necessary to go to church to pray. You have a thousand possibilities: pray in your room or in a quiet place in the house (I remember I went on the roof of my building because it was silent and the wind told me about the presence of God), go to the woods or recite your rosary on the bus that takes you to work or university. If you can go to a church, but see? There are many other good places to pray 😉