I’m what many people would call a “religious professional.” As a religious professional, prayer is a part of my job. I’m lucky in that way — but that is not to say that I’m “good at prayer,” because I don’t think I am, especially the prayer-by-myself type of prayer. Yeah, I can do it, but I have a brain that never flirts as much with ADHD as when I’m trying to pray alone. Perhaps that is Satan at work, perhaps it is my brain chemistry, or perhaps it is just a common problem among humans.

I have talked to enough students trying to build personal prayer habits to realize that I’m not alone. Prayer alone is tough. Meditating on a passage of Scripture is tough. All of these things are spiritual disciplines that we can engage in, but they aren’t necessarily easy. A few of you out there are probably specifically gifted by God to be able to pray alone, either through a natural ability God has given you, or years of acting on that discipline or both. But for the rest of us, it is a battle. A battle worth fighting, but a battle (and don’t feel alone if you battle in this way).

That is why I am relieved in moments like this morning. This morning, a bunch of other Christian campus ministers got together at University Lutheran. We prayed together, we prayed for each other, we made the time for each other and for God with one another. And it was beautiful. A part of the reason that it was beautiful was that it was easy. Well, at least easier. I could listen to the prayer of another and feel God prompting me to pray something else. I could just sit there and not say a word, letting the others carry my part of the load for a moment. I didn’t have to isolate the time, dividing it from my amazingly crazy schedule today – because this was on my calendar. It was coded in non-negotiable “banana yellow” in my calendar, not the “well something else can replace it default blue.”

When I ask people what they feel their next step in following Jesus might be, a lot of times they will say, “I wish I could pray more often.” They will often tell me about failures to get up early or stay up late to pray. But maybe the thing to try next isn’t an earlier alarm, but a person – or even better, a group – that you can pray with. Our Prayer Team gets together Thursdays at 5pm, but you could also find coworkers, costudents, or family members to pray with. No sense in making it hard when maybe what you need is the comfort and ease of easy.

Jesus said “Come unto me, for my burden is light,” and He was the same guy who said that “wherever two or three are gathered, there am I in their midst.” And you never know, maybe asking someone to pray with you just makes their prayer life a little easier too.