The Part We Don’t Pray About
There are conversations where people instinctively edit themselves.
A job interview. A first date. An annual performance review. Even dinner with someone whose opinion matters.
The instinct is understandable. We want to be known, but we also want to be admired. So we leave certain things unsaid. Many of us carry that same instinct into prayer.
We thank God for our blessings, ask for help, or confess our failures. Yet there is often one corner of the heart that remains carefully out of view. It is the place where our motives are mixed, where temptation still feels attractive, where resentment has become familiar, or where we secretly suspect we are not yet ready to become the person we are asking God to make us.
I recently heard comedian Theo Von describe a prayer that has stayed with me. He had realized that he was asking God to free him from something while another part of him already knew he would probably return to it. Instead of pretending otherwise, he asked God to enter even the part of him that knew he was not being honest.
What struck me was the almost painful honesty of it. There was no attempt to sound faithful, determined, or even hopeful. It was simply an admission that part of his heart wanted one thing while another part wanted something else. Rather than hiding that contradiction, he made it the prayer.
That feels surprisingly close to the wisdom of St. Benedict.
Benedict wrote his Rule in the sixth century for communities who would spend years, often decades, living together in the same monastery. There was little room for carefully managing appearances. Before long, everyone knew who struggled with patience, who sought recognition, who avoided difficult work, and who carried old wounds. Benedict’s concern was never the appearance of holiness. His concern was that his followers become whole. That journey could only begin when they stopped pretending to be someone they were not.
The Psalms carry that same spirit. They are filled with praise, but also anger, fear, grief, confusion, and questions that seem almost too raw to speak aloud. Scripture never suggests that God is unsettled by the truth. The people who pray the Psalms bring their whole hearts, not just the respectable parts.
St. Augustine understood this division well. Long before he became a bishop and one of Christianity’s great teachers, he recognized that his desires pulled him in different directions. His famous prayer, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet,” is remembered not because it is admirable, but because it is honest. He did not wait until his heart was united before bringing it to God. He brought God the divided heart he actually had.
Prayer gives us a place to speak those contradictions without disguise.
The next time you pray, resist the temptation to tidy yourself first. If there is a habit you still love a little, admit it. If forgiveness feels impossible, say so. If faith feels thin, don’t replace it with polished words.
There is no advantage in hiding any of it.
Prayer is not where we present our best self to God.
It is where we stop hiding the self He already sees.
Sources: Theo Von, This Past Weekend, episode 654, “Something New” (20 April 2026); Augustine, Confessions, VIII.7.17; The Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 7.
What am I leaving out of my prayer?
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