Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing: How to Live with Peace and Purpose Instead of Stress and Burnout

"I’m so glad my good friend Chad Veach wrote Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing. Packed full of personal stories and biblical truths, he not only teaches you how to pray, he also explains how prayer can help you navigate stress and uncertainty in every area of your life. Imagine how incredible your prayer life will be when you apply what you learn in this book—it will change your life forever!"

Robert Morris, senior pastor of Gateway Church and bestselling author of The Blessed Life, Beyond Blessed, and Take the Day Off

"In his book Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing, Chad Veach brings us back to a practice often overlooked and deemed unnecessary: prayer. He practically and powerfully reminds us that prayer grounds our faith, guides our steps, and guards are hearts as we navigate the earth in partnership with God."

Sadie Robertson Huff, author, speaker, and founder of Live Original

Prayer unlocks God’s peace, power, and purpose in our lives—so why is it so easy to let it fall to the wayside? This book shifts our focus from what’s happening around us to what’s going on inside of us. That is where true peace is found.

Steven Furtick, lead pastor of Elevation Church and New York Times bestselling author of Crash the Chatterbox, Greater, and (Un)Qualified

Sometimes our most difficult situations can be solved with a simple biblical truth. Chad is right! Why worry and stress when prayer is all you need to overcome? This is a must-read for every follower of Christ.

Jentezen Franklin, senior pastor of Free Chapel and New York Times bestselling author

Chad is not only a close friend but also a mentor! The Spirit of Jesus runs through him daily, and God has been doing amazing work in His life! I pray you read this incredible book with an open mind and open heart to grow closer in your personal relationship with Jesus.

Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks Superbowl-winning quarterback

© 2022 by Chad Veach

Published by Bethany House Publishers

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438

www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3761-0

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations labeled NASB are from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org

Scripture quotations labeled NET are from the NET Bible® copyright ©1996, 2019 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com. Scripture quoted by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Roman Bozhko

The author is represented by Capital Literary.

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and post-consumer waste whenever possible.

Julia,

without your love, belief, and prayers,

I really don’t know where we’d be.

You are a rock. A constant source of encouragement

and support to me, our family, and our church.

There’s no one like you. I love you.

Georgia, Winston, Maverick, and Clive,

I love listening to you pray.

And I love praying over each of you.

May God’s will be done in your life.

Zoe,

I’ve always dreamed of building a church

that knows how to pray.

A house of prayer. Thank you for praying

with great fervor and faith.

Your prayers have helped people around the world.

Heaven will tell your story.

Contents

Cover

Endorsements    1

Title Page    3

Copyright Page    4

Dedication    5

1. The one thing I forgot    9

Section 1:  Prayer changes everything . . . but mainly you    23

2. Relaxing on a roller coaster    25

Prayer and peace

3. Pour your own cereal    32

Prayer and purpose

4. God is not your dentist    41

Prayer and premise

5. I’d rather be at the beach    50

Prayer and perspective

6. The problem with birthdays    61

Prayer and presence

7. Have you tried resetting it?    71

Prayer and process

8. Growing pains    81

Prayer and perfection

9. Get in the car    91

Prayer and power

Section 2:  What everybody gets wrong about prayer    103

10. How to dodge ducks    105

11. These prayers are a waste of time    117

12. The cycle of prayer    134

13. Spiritual bypassing is not spiritual at all    144

14. The dark side of prayer    156

Section 3:  Getting better at prayer    167

15. Lord, teach us to bowl    169

16. These are dangerous prayers    184

17. What’s on the menu?    202

18. The lost art of listening    211

Start and end with prayer    227

Acknowledgments    229

Zoe Pray about Everything daily prayer card    231

Notes    235

About the author    239

Back Ad    240

Cover Flaps    241

Back Cover    242

ONE

The one thing I forgot

This book, like a couple of my children, was not planned.

That might seem like an odd way to start a book (or a family), but the best things in life are often unexpected.

I thought I was going to write another book on leadership. That was the subject of my last one, and it’s the focus of my podcast and newsletter. Prayer was not even on my radar. The practice of prayer was, of course, but not writing about it.

Why? Because prayer is one of those fundamental, indispensable things that we tend to take for granted. Like oxygen. Or water. Or Wi-Fi. (Okay, maybe Wi-Fi isn’t on the same level as oxygen or water, but judging by my kids’ reaction when the router goes down for fifteen minutes, you’d think it was.)

Something changed in mid-2020, though. I was in Alabama on a family vacation. We were staying in a house by a lake, and one morning, I was out on the deck, enjoying the sunrise, sipping my coffee, and reading my Bible.

And, of course, praying as I started the day.

After all, this is my morning routine, although I normally don’t have a lake in front of me while I’m doing it. Usually, it’s just the wall of my living room and maybe the face of a random child who woke up too early.

As I sat there and watched the colors change and the world wake up, God spoke to me. Nothing dramatic or audible, just a whispered thought in my heart. He told me to teach our people to pray.

That surprised me. What is there to teach?

Then I remembered a story in the Bible where Jesus went off to pray, which was a habit of His as well. I doubt He had coffee, but He was God, so He could stay awake without caffeine. He would be gone before His disciples woke up sometimes. Often nobody could find Him—neither the disciples nor the crowds—because He was wandering the hills or some nearby olive orchard, just praying.

On this occasion, when Jesus finished praying, His disciples were waiting for Him. There was something about His prayer life that captivated them. There was a massive difference between Jesus’ private, authentic walk with God and the public, all-for-show prayers that often characterized the religious leaders of the day.

I think they wanted the same peace, passion, and power they saw in their Lord, and they realized that His prayer life was the catalyst for all of that. It was the secret sauce, the missing ingredient—and they wanted to know more.

When Jesus walked up to the group, one of them blurted out what they were all thinking: Lord, teach us to pray (Luke 11:1).

Frequently, when people asked Jesus a question or tried to get an easy rule to follow, He would reply with another question or with a parable. He wasn’t being difficult, but rather requiring them to engage with the topic and explore it more in depth—not settle for superficial answers.

Jesus could have responded that way. He could have said, Just do it. Learn as you go, or, Study the Scriptures and figure it out for yourself.

But He didn’t. He didn’t roll His eyes or dodge their question. I think their hunger to pray thrilled His heart.

So Jesus taught them to pray. Think about that. Jesus, the perfect, divine teacher, put whatever plans He had on hold for that day just so He could teach His crew how to do what He did best: pray.

He gave them a simple, specific prayer. We call it the Lord’s Prayer, but it was more than an empty formula to recite. It was a sample prayer. A template to follow. A starter pack for prayer newbies, if you will.

Why did Jesus take time to teach prayer? Because although prayer is vital to the Christian experience, it’s easy to neglect, and it’s not always intuitive.

On a basic level, prayer is not hard. Anyone can talk to God. That’s why there are no atheists in foxholes, as the saying goes. But the nuances and intricacies of prayer take time to understand. We often have misconceptions that hinder our prayer. We have perspectives of God that are not healthy. We expect the wrong things from prayer or try to use it the wrong way.

When God spoke to me that morning by the lake, I started thinking back over my own prayer journey. I realized that I had specific moments when I learned to pray—sometimes on my own, and sometimes through the teaching and example of leaders in the faith.

I realized that prayer is a learned skill.

That’s important because we can be intimidated by it sometimes. We can feel frustrated that we aren’t better at it, or that we don’t enjoy it more, or that we don’t see more results. Nobody is born knowing how to pray, though. It takes practice and experience. You grow in it. You improve at it.

That really is the purpose for this book, to be honest: to learn how to pray. We will explore the purposes and practice of prayer and cover practical advice about how to pray.

As we begin, I’d like to share a few of those pivotal moments when God taught me to pray.

LUNCH AND PRAYER

My prayer journey starts when I was sixteen.

My parents were pastors in a small church in western Washington, so prayer, worship, preaching, Bible, church attendance, and other spiritual disciplines were familiar to me. I wasn’t too interested, though. I didn’t see the point of it all. I cared more about basketball, girls, SportsCenter, and the Seattle SuperSonics than I did about meeting with God in prayer.

And I was fine with that.

Ironically, during those teenage years, I couldn’t shake the sense that I was going to be a pastor someday. I tried to ignore it. I told everyone I was going to be either a basketball coach or a DJ. Anything but a pastor. I was determined to pursue my own future, and I couldn’t imagine church being a big part in that.

I was also deeply unhappy. I remember feeling lost, anxious, and unsettled. Even though I filled my life with friends and sports, I was unfulfilled. I wanted a change; I just didn’t know what that looked like.

At age sixteen I attended a large Christian event called Promise Keepers, and I had a genuine encounter with God. Even now, nearly twenty-five years later, I don’t know how to describe it other than to say that God made himself real to me, and nothing was ever the same.

Overnight, I found myself insatiably hungry for God. The stress and emptiness of my life drove me to prayer. Every night at ten o’clock, I would be on my knees next to my bed, praying to a God I was just beginning to know, with my Bible in front of me and worship music blasting in my ears from my Sony Walkman.

Yes, a Walkman. I’m that old. I had a Walkman back when they were cool, not classic or vintage. Cassette tapes, Side A, Side B, fixing mangled and tangled tape with a pencil . . . if you know, you know.

Prayer was calming for me. It took me to a place of surrender. It settled my anxiety and filled the emptiness I had been feeling, giving me a love for God and others I had never felt before. I continued that nightly ritual for several months.

When I began my senior year of high school, I decided to organize a small prayer group during the lunch hour. It was a public high school with eighteen hundred students. I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew many kids who were struggling with pain, depression, and addictions, and I wanted them to find the same peace I had found. Praying for them seemed like the logical thing to do.

There were three of us at first: two friends and me. Lunch lasted thirty minutes, so every day, we’d eat for fifteen minutes, then go to an empty classroom and pray for fifteen minutes. When the bell rang, we’d head to class.

We weren’t good at prayer. Our prayers were anything but eloquent. We were just three guys reaching out to God with the needs we saw in our friends, the school, and ourselves.

Soon, we invited a few more friends. Within a week there were five of us. Then seven. Then ten, twenty, thirty.

Word spread and people were curious, so more kids came to check it out. We had to move from the classroom to the choir room because we ran out of space. Even more students showed up: forty, then sixty, then eighty. We no longer fit in the choir room, so we moved to the gym.

The prayer time was open to anyone: freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The jocks, the nerds, the goths, the stoners, the misfits, the new kids, the popular kids. People who were lonely. People who knew they weren’t doing well. People looking for acceptance, comfort, or strength.

All were welcome, and all came.

We didn’t preach or share anything from the Bible, we just offered to pray for needs. Kids would ask for prayer for a sick relative, a big test, a drug addiction, a breakup, a big football game. Then me or a buddy would pray for the requests.

And God showed up.

Young people were set free from anorexia and alcoholism. Dozens of kids were saved. We met God in a real, transforming way. I can think of six or seven pastors in ministry today who were present in those lunchtime prayer meetings. That year of simple, unscripted prayer times marked us forever.

WANDERING THE MOUNTAINS OF LA

My second major experience with prayer began right after I graduated from high school. By this time, I had accepted the call of God on my life to ministry. I loved basketball (and still do today), but I realized I wasn’t called to teach kids how to shoot or dribble. I was called to pastor people.

I was invited by a church in East Los Angeles to come work with their youth ministry. I ended up being there for six years, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I fell in love with the people; they didn’t have a lot of money, but they were hardworking, courageous, and full of life.

During this period, I met an Argentinian man named Yoel Bartolomé. We worked together at a church in California, and he became a close mentor. Every couple of weeks, we would meet at a gas station at six in the morning, then drive up to the San Gabriel Mountains. We would split up and wander the mountainside, praying and seeking God.

Like the lunchroom prayer times, those mountaintop moments became part of the fabric of my walk with God. Being outdoors and surrounded by creation is always a good reminder that there is someone bigger than you out there. Maybe that’s what Jesus was doing when He would sneak away to the mountains to pray: He was connecting with a God whose power, like His love, is limitless.

In high school, I met a personal God. He knew my name and cared about my needs.

In the mountains, I met a big God. A sovereign, missional God who didn’t just know my name and care for me, but who loved the world. A God who wanted to use my life as part of His plan.

PRAYING FOR PUYALLUP

The mountaintop prayer times were a highlight of my season in East LA. But that stage of life came to an end when, in 2004, I moved to Puyallup, Washington, a town of thirty-five thousand people south of Seattle, known for hosting the Washington State Fair and having the world’s greatest scones. Seriously. I miss those scones.

I had been offered a job at a church in Puyallup. I knew it was the right decision, but to be honest, I didn’t want to go. Nothing against Puyallup, but I was in love with LA. The way the city moved, the people, the culture, the weather, the palm trees, the Lakers, the food. Seemed like a lot to trade for scones.

I remember leaving LA, driving north on the freeway, and complaining to God about where life was taking me. Suddenly, He interrupted my rant. I can’t really put the experience into words; I just knew it was Him.

He spoke to me specifically: "You’ll move back here one day. You’ll start a church, and you’ll live here for the rest of your life."

Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Mom. She said, Chad, I was praying for you right now, and God spoke to me. He said you’re going to move back to LA someday, start a church, and live the rest of your life there.

Tears began to flow. I could hardly see to drive. The sense of loss was replaced by an assurance of sovereign calling. The anxiety and frustration had given way to peace. I knew in that instant that every season was in His hands, every step planned out by Him. God was going to lead me and use me in Puyallup.

I began working with the young people in the church. We met Sunday nights because the weeknights were too full of school activities.

My Sunday routine was to go to