From visiting tours into India and recently in Sri Lanka with my wife Ruth, we are finding increasing numbers of people feel spiritually starved by the false religions and philosophies of this world, ruled by an indifferent and hate-filled Satan  (2 Corinthians 4:4).

They are keen to "seek God while He may be found" (Isaiah 55:6-7).

One lady with many difficult trials, who is keenly seeking God, said to me recently on our visit to Sri Lanka: "I find it hard to pray. I want to seek God, but how can I overcome and find it easier to pray?"

I think this lady’s question touches a common nerve in all of us. Our natural aversion or procrastination that we can have towards praying to God. Have you ever felt that way, too? (Romans 8:7).

So, do we know a secret key to unlocking aversion to prayer?

Do we know a secret answer to this lady’s difficulty with prayer, which is common to us all?

Prayer sometimes seems to people to be a good thing that is a bit like exercise: Once you get started, it feels good. Once you've finished, you feel even better.

What was it that really stimulated and helped faithful servants of God, like Joshua, Esther, David, Hannah, Daniel and Anna to pray to God?

What was a secret key?

Was it because they looked at prayer as a duty to perform or as a loving talk with our loving, all-understanding God?

Did they look at prayer as an obligation or as a privilege, and made it much more valuable and personal for them?

Did they consider prayer as some type of "assignment" or instead a chance to communicate with our affectionate Father and our Saviour Jesus His Son? 

Perhaps sometimes we don't truly believe God really knows and lovingly cares about us individually and desires to listen to us. We may "know" God does, but do we really believe He does?

Faithful men and women of the past came to that reality. Surely, we can too.

But there was a deeper secret. What was a secret that motivated them to pray?

God, like any parent, wants to hear thoughts, words and actions of heartfelt love, thanks and requests from his children. As a parent, we want warm and loving communication with our children. So, does God desire that with you and me?

Ask, seek, and keep knocking (Matthew 7:7).

There is a tremendous amount of fulfilment in knowing that God is always there to guide us for our asking, isn’t there?

But, is there a way of asking, seeking and knocking that God will not hear and is there a way to ask, seek and knock that God will hear?

Is there a secret to us asking, seeking, and knocking and reaching God in prayer?

God is pleased with a faithful servant of God and will listen when that person prays for others, right?

James 5:16: "Pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much."

This scripture lets us know how important prayer is, and though we are only human, God will honour the prayers of a faithful person who lives by God’s laws and principles of life.

Is there an extra secret that is a cohesive for this principle, expressed by James, to really work in our prayers?

Yes there is and it is a secret that sadly, not many people do in their prayers.

Let’s read a few scriptures and see if we can grasp this helpful secret to wanting to pray.

What was an important driving motivating force for Joshua to pray?

Joshua 22:5: "But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul [being]" (emphasis added throughout).

Joshua 23:11: "Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that you love the Lord your God."

What was a secret that inspired and motivated King David to pray?

Psalm 18:1: "I will love You, O Lord, my strength."

Psalm 31:23: O love the Lord, all you his saints: for the Lord preserves the faithful, and plentifully rewards the proud [arrogant] doer."

Psalm 145:20: "The Lord preserves all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy."

What secret inspired Daniel and helped make it easier for him to pray?

Daniel 9:4: "And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and wonderful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep His commandments."

What inspired Jesus Christ?

Matthew 22:37: "Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your mind."

Loving God detoxifies our minds from Satan, this world, and our human nature.

Loving God energises us and motivates us to pray and lovingly follow God's laws and way of life.

That’s why it is so good for us, in the morning, as soon as possible each day in our prayers, to tell God we love Him as our Father and we love Jesus as our guiding Saviour, Advocate and Elder Brother.

A great secret is to actually think and speak the words in prayer, from our heart and mind: "I love you God our Father. I love you Jesus, my Lord and Saviour."

It is a beautiful way to awake in the morning, quietly thinking of God and telling God how much we love Him. This is an exquisite way to start our day really well and leads us to then pray more easily.

From expressing our love to God, it naturally flows to repent of our sins and ask God for help, guidance, wisdom and strength, through God’s Spirit, in keeping God’s commandments; to show our deep love to Him and to others.

From my personal experience, I know that one prayer that God always hears and mercifully answers is a sincere prayer of repentance for our sins (1 John 1:9, 1 John 3:4).

1 John 5:2-3: "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."

If we pray in love to God and read a chapter or two from the Bible each morning, we can be certain our day will go well for us, because we are close to our Father and are seeking His loving guidance and wisdom in our decision making, in our lives.

Then throughout the day and into the evening before we go to bed, it is good to be lovingly mindful of God and how God desires us to live by His laws and way of life as blessings to us.

Letting God know in our thoughts and words with Him that we love God and are thankful for God’s love for us, is a great secret in stimulating our relationship with God, and being motivated through God’s spirit in us, to keenly pray and do God’s will.

Telling God daily that we love Him is a great secret stimulation to pray.