I have had a decent share of “barren” prayer seasons. You know the ones where prayer feels like a chore, where the experience feels dry, and you struggle to connect and piece words together fluently.
Yeah, those. Those ones that feel like they never made it past the ceiling of your prayer room.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not insinuating that prayers during these seasons are ineffective or suboptimal. On the contrary, I think they are very crucial times of prayers. I believe praying even when you don’t feel like, is a sign of spiritual maturity.
However, I am saying that Prayer doesn’t always have to feel like you are in a rut, and there are ‘tweaks’, and adjustments you could start making to “spice up” your prayer sessions.
I have equally had seasons of spirited and enthralling prayers, during which I stumbled upon some game-changers that honestly transformed my prayer time with God.
These are not fancy techniques from some spiritual guru—just real, raw adjustments that shifted everything for me.
Let’s take a look at them.
1. Reverence: Clean House Before You Pray
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. – Proverbs 9:10
Since Jesus taught his disciples to pray, it means there is a right way to pray.
Perhaps, the reason you feel barren during prayer is cause you are not doing it correctly. Later on in Luke 11:2, Jesus quotes a line now part of the Lord’s prayer;
Father, hallowed be your name.
These words are expressions of the right heart posture in prayer — Reverence.
What’s your heart’s disposition to God in prayer?
I know we all say we fear God, but do we really fear him —not the kind of fear that cripples and avoids but the reverential kind that makes you want to be in your best behavior?
Just as it is with our earthly parents, we, as children of God, can know the things that are acceptable in his presence and are expected of us.
He is God Almighty. He is Father, yet he is King. He is God the Son, yet he is Lord over our lives.
As we know God more and more in truth and experience, our reverence for him will naturally grow.
We must, however, be a generation that reveres God in prayer and carries a consciousness of His hallowed presence.
2. Disposition: Enough with the Spiritual Victim Mode
This one’s gonna ruffle some feathers, but here goes: You can choose how you show up to God.
For the longest time, I approached prayer like a perpetual victim—whimpering, head hung low, reinforcing this weird mindset of weakness.
One day, just as I was about to go into the Lord’s presence in prayer with this same weak, defeatist, “I-tried-but-I-still-fail-to-overcome-sin” mentality, the Holy Spirit said;
You can come crying and whimpering and reinforcing the mindset of weakness. Or you can step into all the strength, confidence, joy and euphoria in Jesus. Which person do you want to be?
Listen, I’m not saying tears aren’t appropriate sometimes. There’s absolutely a time to pour out your heart in raw grief.
But I’ve learned to recognize when that ship has sailed; when it’s time for a new approach—to wipe my tears, stand up, and face my challenges with God beside me, rather than just begging Him to make them disappear.
You can’t have the enemy staring at you in the face and defying all you hold dear, and your best response is tears.
Come on!!
Rather than pray, ”God, I have been fighting and failing miserably at [enter struggle]”, Pray;
God, give me today, this ground!
Then step out in Godfidence, trusting in all God can do in and through you.
Sometimes the prayer God is waiting for isn’t another plea but a declaration of who you already are in Him.
3. Spiritual Language: Ditch the Performance Anxiety
Can we be honest about how much pressure we put on ourselves to sound “good” when we pray? Like God is grading us on vocabulary and sentence structure?
Use the prayer language. It is to your advantage.
Tongues is a tool for spiritual expression. It can alter the subjective experience of its user.
Personally, I find that the more I speak in tongues during focused prayer, the more I access more of my spiritual faculties; I remember scriptures easily, apply them, and the words to express spiritual truth come easily.
Shortly after, there is complete alignment of my mind, spirit, and speech in Prayer. The Prayer experience becomes as though I hit a gusher.
At this point, prayer becomes spontaneous, supernatural, effortless and not to mention, enjoyable.
Speak in tongues if you can.
PS: You can if you have received the Holy Spirit.
Pray in the language of the spirit. It stirs up something on your inside.
If you think prayer is about performance, be assured, in all eloquence of speech, you won’t be able to communicate to God better than the person who prays by the Holy Spirit.
Not only is it an ineffable experience, it also leaves a lasting and transformative impact.
4. Surrender: Let Go of Your Prayer Agenda
The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes. Proverbs 21:1
Here’s something I wrote down in my journal that changed everything. It —or a closely related version— is an affirmation and reminder I believe every believer should take seriously.
“I refuse to let my heart be fixed on a motive or stance contrary to God’s will. Anchoring there means drowning literally. I want the Holy Spirit to be able to steer my heart and desires, as scripture says, The heart of a king is like a river in God’s hands.”
I give it to you, this declaration is a tough one because I’m as stubborn as they come. (I would blame it on being an Aries, but I don’t believe in Zodiac signs.)
The thing is, I often approach prayer with my mind already made up about what God should do. Then I wonder why I feel so frustrated when things don’t go my way!
For you, it could be that God has made his will known to you on a particular matter, but because you don’t understand it or it isn’t convenient or desirable, you kick back in hopes that God will change His mind.
He rarely does.
The problem, though, is that the longer a person lives at variance with God’s will, the more conflicted they feel — At least, that has been my own experience.
Over to you.
Acknowledge God in everything—your thinking, decision-making, and planning. This means holding your desires with open hands rather than clenched fists as you make your supplications to God.
Make sure you mean it when you say “Let Your will be done”.
Learning to hold your desires loosely will transform not just your prayers but your entire relationship with God. As you practice releasing your grip on outcomes, you’ll discover a deeper trust and a more authentic connection with God that flows naturally from submission rather than agenda.
Surrendering to God isn’t weakness; it’s a pathway to extraordinary living.
5. Consistency: Make Prayer Your Sin-Breaker
Regular Prayer can be a much-needed reset and override for sin.
I know it was a lifeline for me during a season where I had been crippled and enslaved by the cycle of a sin I mollycoddled. My mind, flesh, and body were given to it. I basically made plans and scheduled the sinful act.
But because of my reverence for God and how much I valued the Prayer practice, I couldn’t come to the place of prayer with evil plans brooding.
It became a clash of habits. To pray, or not to pray, because I wanted to indulge the flesh?
I cherish and enjoy my prayer time with God so much that it was a no-brainer to choose to pray.
Make prayer your daily refuge by establishing a rhythm of genuine connection with God.
A consistent prayer life becomes both weapon and shield, creating a sacred space where sin’s power diminishes as God’s presence increases.
This is about faithful persistence that builds spiritual resistance against temptation — not perfection.
Curated For You: 16 Effective prayers for self control.
6. Listening: Make Space for God to Speak Back
One of the most freeing discoveries I’ve made about prayer is that I don’t need to have all my words and requests mapped out in advance.
There’s something powerful about listening for God’s heart during prayer and letting that inform your prayer.
When we come with a pre-planned prayer script, we often end up with mechanical prayers and a monotonous experience.
I get it—especially for new converts, going into prayer with only a desire but no plan can feel uncomfortable. But as we mature spiritually and truly grasp that God values authenticity over performance, something shifts.
Even with the use of prayer points and affirmations, we should learn to pause between sentences and observe for spiritual illumination.
While praying, listen for notes of victory. Be sensitive to when God is stirring your heart in a completely different direction during prayer. God speaks in a myriad of ways —but we’ll miss it all if we never pause our monologues.
Learning to create deliberate silence has transformed everything. Now, in what used to be uncomfortable silence, I open a journaling app, write out my initial thoughts, and whatever comes to mind—impressions, Scripture fragments, or random thoughts that might not be so random after all.
Sometimes what God wants to say is far more important than what you thought you needed to ask.
7. Gratitude: Start and End with Thanks
I recently started keeping a gratitude log as part of my daily journal. It has forced me to practice thankfulness even on my worst days.
Before launching into requests, I write down three specific things I’m genuinely grateful for. I find these to be tiny moments of grace I would otherwise miss. Then I take them to the Lord in thanksgiving.
This practice has systematically dismantled my sense of entitlement and replaced it with wonder.
Incorporate gratitude into your prayers and heartfully thank God for His person, His blessings, and His promises.
While Jesus Christ paid the ultimate price to reconcile us to God, there’s still significant personal investment required to make our relationship with Him thrive.
Jesus provided the access—the infrastructure that makes fellowship with God possible—but it’s on us to actually build something meaningful on that foundation.
From readjusting our disposition towards God and prayers to utilizing prayer aids at our disposal, we have a handful of options to reinvigorate our prayer life.
The beauty is that you don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Pick just one tweak that resonates with you, emphasize it for a week or two, and see what happens.
I’d love to hear which of these resonates with you, or what personal tweaks have transformed your own prayer life.
