In the Renewed Man program, one of the keys we talk about that unlocks long term recovery from addiction is "Authentic Faith." We need God's help for recovery to happen. We need to be in right relation / connection to God in order for our lives to work right, and therefore for lasting recovery to take place. Put another way: 

In order to live with mental, emotional, and relational health -- all requirements for lasting recovery -- we need to live with SPIRITUAL health.

And to live with spiritual health we don't simply need faith ... we need authentic faith. We need a faith that is honest, a faith that is real, that makes sense to us, and works for us.

Building an “authentic faith” means facing our questions and disillusioning experiences head on. We run into problems when the experiences we have -- and the things we observe about how life really works -- don’t match up with what we have been taught to believe about God, life, and the world. 

For many Christians, the area where they experience the greatest "belief vs experience" disconnect occurs in the practice of prayer. 

Many Christians are taught to believe that prayer is “supposed to be” a way of talking to God and requesting things to work out a certain way … and if / when they don’t, it’s because they’ve done something wrong. Either they sinned, prayed incorrectly, or didn’t have enough faith. Some Bible verses seem to encourage this, promising that whatever we ask for, if we believe it with enough certainty, then we’ll get what we want (Mark 11:24). 

How is that working out for you? The only people I know who find it working well are new Christians who haven’t prayed very much. 

Live long enough, pray for enough things, and you’ll start getting confused and disheartened, as you pray for more and more things, and find less and less of them being answered (at least in the way you hoped and expected).

I find it very interesting and instructive that when the 12 Steps talk about prayer, they speak directly to this issue, and seem to recognize it as a cause of confusion and disillusionment. 

Step 11 says that we “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for the knowledge of God’s will for us, and the power to carry that out.”

Interesting.

Prayer does not need to involve asking God to give you something you desire, or change someone else in the way you’d like to see them changed. Often when we pray those kinds of prayers, it’s just our way of trying to run the world. We’re trying to get God to do the things we want Him to do. To take care of things in our world in such a way as to make things easier and more pleasant for us. That usually doesn’t work out.

Prayer doesn’t need to involve an attempt to persuade or cajole God into seeing things your way, or doing something you really want. This view of prayer is sometimes encouraged, but it invokes images of a manipulative child trying to wear down the resistance of a tired parent. Instead, it might help to think of prayer as a chance to seek God’s help and guidance because you don’t know it all. You don’t have all the answers.

Prayers Should Be More / Other Than Scattered, Rambled Thoughts

Another thing needs to be said about helping people grow in the experience of meaningful and authentic prayer. It’s very hard to have coherent prayers if they are only disjointed thoughts in your head. Our minds tend to drift and jump around erratically when left to themselves. Many of us struggle with prayer, because in our prayer time, our minds are jumping around from thing to thing, and we wind up feeling guilty and “unspiritual.”

I once heard a wise old pastor say that: “It doesn’t count as a prayer unless you SAY it or WRITE it." In other words, either (a) say it out loud — at least vocalize the words under your breath — or (b) write it down on paper. Unless you speak it or write it – you haven’t offered a prayer, you’ve just had a few vague and jumbled thoughts. Vocalizing these thoughts — even under your breath — or writing them down helps it become a clear and specific statement or request.

We might argue with that view on purely technical grounds, but I want to encourage you to at least try this approach. Stop just “thinking” your prayers — our minds often get confused and jumbled — instead, write or speak them.

It’s not a prayer unless you SPECIFICALLY ARTICULATE IT -- either speak it or write it. 

And while you do that, when it comes to bringing requests to God … try living out the wisdom of the 11th Step. Let God decide how to run the world. For your part, “pray only for the knowledge of God’s will, and the power to carry that out.” 

Watch what happens.