Showing Up Anyway: The Hilarious, Holy Art of Praying When You’d Rather Do Anything Else

Some mornings are stone. There is the blurry sludge of waking, an avalanche of tasks already chattering behind the eyes, and the hush of early light stretching thin across the wall—still, no urge whatsoever to turn heart or hands toward prayer. If anything, there’s resistance, as if trudging into a wind that never relents—the inward objection, the mental grumble: not today. Not yet. Not me.

This is the moment, you see, when prayer actually begins—not in gilded phrases or the ease of emotion, but in the lumbering, humbling choice to show up to God carrying nothing but honest emptiness. It is the moment the psalmist, heart cracking, uttered, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (Psalm 42:2). The ancient singer did not wait for his heart to ignite; he named his thirst, raw and unpolished, and waited for grace to break in.

On sun-drenched mornings, prayer is song and lightness. But more often, it feels like trudging uphill in boots a size too small, painful, slow, ordinary. On these days, willingness itself is a gift, a whispered love-letter slipped under the door of heaven when words fail.

We are not always ablaze with longing for prayer. If anything, desire comes and goes like the tide, called by moons and weather we cannot foresee. Even the holiest among us, the saints and mystics whose names shimmer centuries later, knew this rhythm of resistance and desire. St. Teresa of Ávila, who read hearts with the gentleness and accuracy of a surgeon, insisted that all spiritual growth rests on “determined determination,” the stubborn choice of God even when every feeling protests (St. Teresa of Ávila, 2004, p. 69). Thérèse of Lisieux made her prayer, on dry afternoons, a simple offering of exhaustion, distraction, and small hopes—trusting that such modest gifts would be enough (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, 1996, pp. 137–139).

What relief to know that even spiritual giants shuffled to prayer with nothing but threadbare willingness. God, it turns out, is not waiting for eloquence; He delights not in polish, but presence.

Consider Christ Himself, in the bruised night of the garden, lips trembling with dread, praying, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). No soaring words, no choir of angels, only honest surrender. Here, prayer is a hand stretched out in the dark, unsure if it will be held.

Paul writes that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). Prayer…especially the reluctant, broken kind…is never wasted. Even sighs ascend like incense.

Romano Guardini, shepherd of liturgical wisdom, teaches that the rhythms of prayer, the liturgy, the repeated, shared words, carry us when enthusiasm fails (Guardini, 1998). To enter the Divine Office or even the briefest, mumbled morning offering is to let the river of prayer sweep us forward, even when we limp to its banks.

Jacques Philippe, in his slender, helpful guide Time for God, says perseverance is more vital than feeling (Philippe, 2007, p. 65). He reassures: God always acts when we simply show up, but in His time, not ours. Even boredom, he notes, can be the field in which depth is sown.

Josef Pieper, philosopher of leisure and rest, maintains that worship springs from soil deeper than duty, it is rooted in giving God room to enter ordinary life, letting silence and Sabbath become altars (Pieper, 1998, pp. 38–43). In his view, prayer is not only a skill but a space.

Somehow, it is the smallest practices that unlock the door:

• Time-Limited Prayer. Commit two honest minutes; brevity lowers the threshold, and presence outweighs duration.

• Let the Body Lead. Bow, kneel, light the candle, touch the rosary, let the gesture root what the heart cannot stir.

• Anchor in Intercession. When personal prayer falters, lift someone else by name, letting compassion seep through the cracks.

• Psalm-a-Day. Read a Psalm aloud as daily bread, letting its melody linger, even when meaning runs behind (Psalm 42).

• Brief Examen. At dusk, remember one joy and one regret; hold both quietly before God and rest.

These steps are small. But small is the secret to most holy things.

What if dryness is not defeat, but invitation? To pray when lungs are tired and spirit is heavy is to enter what Christ entered: love before feeling, to trust that hangdog fidelity fertilizes the soul when consolation is nowhere to be found.

It is not strength or inspiration alone that matures the soul, but the choice, sometimes unwilling, to show up again and again. Winter fields still receive seed. In silent hours, roots find their course.

Sometimes, grace arrives with a whisper, not a trumpet. The heart softens. Tears sting, not from sorrow but relief. Something green stirs beneath the stone.

There was a night, after a day like sandpaper, when routine steered me into a corner chapel more out of habit than hope. I sat silent and sullen. In came a girl with her father, wriggled free of his hand, knelt clumsily, and whispered: “Hi Jesus, I’m here.” The simplicity undid me. That night, I borrowed her prayer for myself: “Hi Jesus, I’m here.” Sometimes, that is more than enough.

Doxology

Lord of windowless rooms, companion of dry hearts, receive our bare arrivals and breathe life into dust. Meet us in stubborn silence and ordinary struggle; teach us true prayer blossoms even in resistance. Let us trust that showing up, tired and graceless, is still an act of love, and, by grace, will become joy. Amen.

References

Guardini, R. (1998). The spirit of the liturgy (A. Dru, Trans.). Crossroad Publishing Company. (Original work published 1930)

Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version. (1989). Psalm 42; Luke 22:42; Romans 8:26.

Philippe, J. (2007). Time for God. Scepter Publishers.

Pieper, J. (1998). Leisure: The basis of culture (G. Malsbary, Trans.). Ignatius Press. (Original work published 1948)

St. Teresa of Ávila. (2004). Interior castle (E. Allison Peers, Trans.). Image Books. (Original work published 1588)

St. Thérèse of Lisieux. (1996). Story of a soul: The autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux (J. Clarke, Trans.). ICS Publications.