The spiritual life can be very frustrating sometimes, especially when it comes to motivation. This feels like a terrible thing to admit, because if we really loved Jesus, shouldn’t we always be motivated to spend time with Him in prayer? If human love was perfect, then this would be the case, but unfortunately our fallen human nature interferes with our desire to spend time with God, resulting in distraction from prayer and a lack of motivation. This struggle can be quite discouraging, so how can we avoid allowing it to become a source of despair?

It’s important to recognize, first of all, that you can’t win this fight alone, and you won’t completely eradicate distraction from your life. In every moment of temptation, there comes a point at which you must simply decide to reject it. In temptations to laziness and distraction, you will need to will yourself to act, to work, to pray. There will be many such points, every hour and every day of your life. Yet you cannot hope to overcome the temptation to distraction, or any other temptation, through your strength of will alone. C. S. Lewis states that “We must never imagine that our own unaided efforts can be relied upon to carry us even through the next twenty-four hours as “decent people”. If He does not support us, not one of us is safe from some gross sin” (Mere Christianity). Only through God’s grace can we avoid sin, yet praying every day is not going to make us perfect. So if you keep praying that God would remove a temptation from your life, and you don’t see results immediately, trust that God is allowing you to experience it for some good reason. Rather than getting frustrated in yourself, continue turning to God and ask Him to reveal to you (in His own time!) the goodness that He has planned for you through your struggles. 

Though it may seem that our weaknesses separate us from God, God often uses them to draw us closer to Him. In his second letter to the Corinthians, St Paul mentions that “a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Various theories have been proposed as to what this “thorn” may be referring to, ranging from persecution to illness to spiritual opponents. Though we don’t know exactly what caused St Paul’s thorn, each one of us has our own “thorns” to deal with, including our temptations, distractions, and struggles with motivation. Just like thorns digging into our own flesh, we don’t want these things there, and we know that they hurt us. However, God allows us to experience them for a reason. Like Paul, we often receive the same response from God when we cry out to Him: “My grace is enough for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Sometimes we fall into sin because we are relying too much on our own strength, and not trusting God to provide us what we need. Other times, God allows us to struggle in order to highlight to us certain areas of our life that we need to work on in order to become more like Him: “No possible degree of holiness or heroism which has ever been recorded of the greatest saints is beyond what He is determined to produce in every one of us in the end. The job will not be completed in this life, but He means to get us as far as possible before death” (Mere Christianity). Though these failures are frustrating, they serve as powerful reminders to turn back to the Savior who loves to save, trusting in His goodness and asking Him to make our hearts more like His.

Our sins, weaknesses, and temptations are not good, and we should certainly try to avoid or overcome them, yet when we do fail, God in His great power and mercy uses our failure for goodness. Every time we fall, we are reminded of our weakness. This can be a temptation to despair, or we can treat it as an invitation to joy, as we are reminded of how desperately we need God and are invited to abandon ourselves more fully to Him: “We can even rejoice, in a sense, in having an evil nature which justly gives us the occasion to deny it our consent and to repeat, “No, Jesus, it is Your will that I love; it is that which I want and nothing else. It is You whom I choose.”” (I Believe In Love, Fr. Jean C. J. D’Elbée). Though our sins separate us from God, they allow us to receive His wonderful gift of mercy.

So do not be discouraged by your weakness! When temptations and distractions arise, strive to turn to God and follow His will in the present moment, asking always for the grace to continue to follow Him. If and when you do give in to distraction, repent immediately, and then rejoice in your weakness. Rather than getting frustrated, thank God for giving you the opportunity to choose to love Him over and over again, and then get up and do the task at hand, whatever it may be.