Faith

You might have to set a timer and start slow and work your way up to learning how to sit and be still. I have struggled with this and recently it's been hard but it does not mean you are not obedient. Try looking Mark DeJesus videos

There is no magic time limit to pray. One hour is not superior to 1 minute. Ill tell you what I heard a lady at church tell me once. She said "God hears the things you ask of Him". And thats true for you too dear one. He hears your questions.

My therapist says “what if” is often a sign it’s an OCD thought. What skills do you use when you have those thoughts arise? This is the time to use ERP. If you’re not seeing a therapist I do recommend seeing someone who really understands ocd and can walk you through erp. Religious ocd is super insidious and especially tough if a faith tradition is very black and white in interpretation and guidance. I have a strong faith but needed to do some real soul searching on how I engaged with it in meaningful ways that weren’t just ticking boxes (I’ve absolutely had the same thoughts about how to sit for an hour in prayer. I don’t. I think God knows my heart, I think you can pray on the go as well. I also see discussing faith with others as engaging with faith and God. But you can also prayerfully do your work or chores or volunteer or attend therapy. God may not be using you to save the world every day, he may be asking you to spend time caring for yourself. I’m not saying never volunteer or pray again, but if there’s a guilt to do so, that’s not from God. Explore other churches or other interpretations of that story about the hardened heart and why. Perhaps find somewhere you can cheerfully serve God, maybe it’s making beautiful art others can enjoy, or volunteering at a food shelf organizing in the back with headphones in, or greeting at church. Or, take in that God doesn’t actually need prayer from you. God knows everything. Prayer is often for us, so to speak. He loves us and he wants communication but some people do that through song or art or time in nature as well. Anyways, it’s challenging peeling apart ocd and faith. Questions are sometimes hard too because they are SO IMPORTANT to allow yourself to ask, and to look into. If you find yourself getting really great answers from 3 people or books and continuing to research as if there will be certainty somewhere, pause and see if this is OCD. A big part of me changing churches was because my original church focused SO INTENSELY on having the correct answer and certainty and even though they loved other faith traditions, ours was the best. It was really hard but healthy for me to go to a different one where they held more space for different interpretation or disagreement, and sermons didn’t feel like a checklist of everything I needed to feel guilty about doing for the rest of my life but instead a thought provoking story of how I might point my character and actions toward Jesus and a holy purpose.

I believe that He listens to it all and loves us without fail no matter.... He's the best friend that you can tell everything to and trust that He will stay with you though it all 🥴