I expect every Christian would agree that there are times when prayer is a struggle. Though we experience blessed seasons when prayer is the easiest and most natural thing in the world, we also experience seasons when prayer is difficult and when it feels awkward or even ineffective. And for this reason we all sometimes need a little refresher, a little reminder, a little spark. Kevin Halloran’s When Prayer Is a Struggle is meant to console Christians who are struggling to pray, to diagnose their troubles, and to provide practical counsel that can motivate them once more. A book that is appropriately simple and relatively short, it serves as a very relevant and very applicable guide to prayer. Halloran frames the book around nine common reasons Christians may struggle to pray: I forget why prayer matters is the first, while I don’t know what to pray comes second. Behind them are I feel too guilty to pray, I’m not sure God hears me, and I have mixed motives. Then he moves to I can’t focus, I’m so unorganized, and I’m too stressed. Last is perhaps the most familiar of all: I’m too busy. For each chapter, he explains the nature of that particular struggle, then lays out a head-heart-hands approach to tackling it. He shows which gospel truths speak to that struggle, diagnoses the particular heart issues that keep us from prayer, then suggests how to move forward in despite such struggles. Knowing that it is easier to read a book on prayer than to … Continue reading When Prayer Is a Struggle