I hope it’s okay to write something a bit longer. I’ve been sitting with this question for a while and haven’t quite known who to ask, partly because it feels like one of those things everyone else around me already understands.

I keep hearing the phrase “pray in the Spirit,” sometimes in sermons, sometimes in conversations, and I notice that people often talk about it with a kind of certainty or confidence that I don’t really understand. It’s usually described as something alive and powerful, almost like a different way of praying altogether, and I find myself wondering whether I’ve ever really done that — or whether I’m just going through the motions without realising it.

When I pray, it’s usually quiet and fairly simple. Sometimes it’s just a few words, sometimes it’s more like sitting in silence and not knowing what to say at all. I don’t often feel anything dramatic. There’s no strong emotion most of the time, and no clear sense of God’s presence in the way other people describe. I’ve started to wonder whether that means I’m missing something important, or whether I’m somehow doing prayer “wrong.”

What makes it harder is that I don’t want to turn prayer into a performance. I don’t want to chase a particular feeling or try to manufacture an experience just so I can tell myself “yes i’ve done it!” At the same time, I don’t want to settle for something shallow if there’s meant to be more depth available. I feel caught between not wanting to force anything and not wanting to wilfully ignore something real.

I suppose I’m trying to understand whether praying in the Spirit is about words, or posture (like muslims in sajdah) or emotion, or something else entirely. Is it something you learn how to do, or something that happens over time without you noticing? Is it possible to be praying in the Spirit even when prayer feels dry, distracted, or ordinary? And how do you honestly stay in it, without comparing yourself to other people’s experiences? I want to pray with just words with the innocence of a child. Am sure God hears all, right?

I’m not asking because I want a technique. I’m asking because I want prayer to be real, even if it’s quiet and uncertain. I’d rather pray truthfully than impressively. I just don’t know how to hold that alongside everything I’ve been told prayer is supposed to look like.

Thank you for reading this, and for creating a space where it feels possible to ask something like this without being rushed or judged.

MJ, North Carolina

R2J Reply:

Thank you for your email.

Thank you for taking the time to write as carefully and honestly as you did. The way you described your question already says a lot about the kind of prayer you’re hoping for — not impressive, not forced, but real.

One of the quiet misunderstandings around prayer, especially phrases like “praying in the Spirit,” is that they can start to sound like a different level of Christianity, something more intense or more alive than what most people are actually living. When that happens, ordinary prayer can begin to feel like a failure, even when it’s sincere. That’s a heavy thing to carry, and it’s not what prayer was meant to become.

In the New Testament, praying in the Spirit isn’t described as a particular tone of voice, set of words, or emotional state. It’s not presented as something you switch on, or something you prove by feeling a certain way. At its heart, it’s about direction rather than sensation — prayer that is turned towards God honestly, without trying to control the outcome or impress either Him or ourselves.

The quietness you described isn’t a problem to be fixed. Many people assume that God is most present when prayer feels vivid or emotionally charged, but Scripture and experience both suggest otherwise. There are long stretches in many faithful lives where prayer feels dry, distracted, or unremarkable, and those seasons are not signs of absence. They are often where trust is being formed, slowly and without spectacle.

Praying in the Spirit can look like sitting in silence because you don’t have the right words. It can look like repeating the same simple prayer because that’s all you have. It can look like admitting confusion, boredom, or even reluctance, and not dressing any of that up. The Spirit’s role is not to make prayer dramatic, but to help us pray truthfully — especially when we don’t know what to say or how to say it.

You asked whether it’s possible to be praying in the Spirit even when prayer feels ordinary. I think the honest answer is that it often looks most like that. Not constant awareness, not emotional clarity, but a willingness to keep turning up, to keep facing God as you are rather than as you think you should be.

There’s also something important in what you said about not wanting a technique. Prayer becomes fragile when we turn it into a method for achieving a feeling. The Spirit isn’t something to be summoned or managed. He is described more as a presence that accompanies, intercedes, and holds prayer when we can’t hold it ourselves. That means you’re not failing when prayer feels thin. You’re simply being human.

If it helps, you might think of praying in the Spirit less as doing something differently, and more as allowing yourself to stop pretending — about your attention, your faith, your certainty, or your lack of it. In that sense, the kind of prayer you described already sounds closer to the heart of it than you might realise.

You don’t need to compare your prayer life to anyone else’s. Much of what people talk about publicly is shaped by personality, language, or context, and very little of it tells the full story. What matters more is whether prayer remains a place where you can be honest, even when nothing seems to be happening.

Moving forward, wanting to pray with the innocence of a child is not a small desire. Children don’t pray with the awareness of how prayer is supposed to look. They don’t monitor themselves while they’re speaking. They say what they mean, stop when they’re done, and don’t usually replay it afterwards to see whether it counted. That kind of simplicity isn’t something you force yourself back into; it returns when you stop watching yourself pray.

And yes — God hears words that are plain, unfinished, even clumsy. He hears prayers that don’t sound spiritual, and prayers that are nothing more than a sentence or a sigh. If He only heard the prayers that were well-formed or emotionally strong, very few of us would ever be heard at all.

Staying in that place is less about protecting a feeling and more about letting go of the need to evaluate your prayer as it’s happening. Again, when comparison starts to creep in, it can help to notice it gently and then return to what you were actually saying to God, rather than what you were thinking about yourself. Over time, that returning becomes more natural.

You don’t need to pray like anyone else. You don’t need to sound a certain way. The prayer you’re describing — simple, spoken, unguarded — is already closer to innocence than you may realise.

Thank you for trusting R2J with a question that clearly matters to you. There’s nothing in what you wrote that suggests you’re missing something essential. If anything, it suggests you’re paying attention in the right way — slowly, carefully, and without trying to force what can only be received.

May all your prayers be answered,

R2J