It seems to get more challenging as a person goes through life...sometimes, I find myself having difficulty in just simply trusting God, it's like there's this self dependence that's difficult to let go. It's as if it's so difficult to let my mind just be at ease.
The older I get I become more cynical, question more, doubt more, it's as if in every prayer I always sense this intrusive thought come in saying, "What if He doesn't answer your prayer? What if it isn't His will?" And this just ruins my prayers, it feels like a 50/50 chance sometimes, but I don't want to be like this. I want to have a whole hearted faith where I can just 100% believe that God would work through. Maybe I overthink or overanalyze too much, is prayer supposed to be hard? Sometimes it can feel so exhausting.
This sounds like you have become a bit confused about the nature of God, so that your adversary has this opportunity to make you doubt in a way that you didn't doubt in the past. I would hazard a guess (because it happens easily and is very common) that you might have an insufficient exposure to the real spirit of God in your life, or that you might even be receiving influence from someone who is of a worldly mind and having mistakenly thought that one to be a good influence (1 Corinthians 15:33).
A child isn't born with corrupted thinking - that is added to us as our comprehensions are expanded over time (this is why parent's are protective about who gets to influence their children). Children often see The Holy Spirit in their parents, because God is love. St. John writes that the one who stays in love stays in God, and God in him. Parents have their moments of lovelessness wherein their passions (eg: anger) overtake the fruits of the spirit, but their hearts are also drawn back to love by the child's humbleness (to varying degrees per person and family, for various reasons - cultural, social, stresses etc). When we are grown-ups, we don't get that treatment as much. This is a major reason why age contributes to less grace - corruption, resentment, loneliness.
Because society is so incredibly dysfunctional these days, most people do not feel loved by the world around them and when they have not been able to endure the affliction, neither do they feel compelled to love those in the world around them. Jesus said this would happen in Matthew 24:12, and this is why the present age of sexual promiscuity is so destructive. A person I spoke to a few weeks ago told me that he thinks inappropriate contentography has been the single most destructive instrument to society in the modern age. I was inclined to agree, although I would have identified it more generally.
Love (ie: the spirit of God) naturally emanates from a healthy, functional family unit - but the human's knowledge of love has been displaced by lusts for instant self-gratification - sexual, emotional, sensual, causing the needs of the family members to go unfulfilled by each other because their hearts are turned toward themselves instead of each other.
The family unit is sacred (Matthew 19:6, Malachi 4:6), and with the rise of iniquity facilitated through community's ignorance to God's law, mockers claim rights to oppose righteousness under the guise of political correctness. Having gained ground while the church had fallen to sleep (Matthew 13:25, Luke 19:14), iniquity has become deeply ingrained in Televised Media (propaganda that brainwashes society) - corrupting the culture of society through the subtle and broad indoctrination of it's unholy values - perpetuating to influence the thoughts of Christians - and even to influence the ideas that pastors themselves teach in Jesus' name! (Romans 12:2).
This is why the world is suffering, groaning in it's futility like never before (Romans 8:20-21), and this is why it is not uncommon for Christians to have become confused about the nature of God (Matthew 6:24, 1 Corinthians 10:21, John 6:32-33).
The dangers of Christians watching Television are easily scoffed at, but the risk is real. The television cannot be reasoned with nor corrected, and if it manages to appeal to the flesh in such a way that is wicked in God's sight (eg: violence), then by subjecting one's mind to enjoy that thought pattern, he has chosen to give the evil spirit the sovereign place in his life instead of The Holy Spirit (Isaiah 33:15).
What's worst, is those Christians go the very next day to call themselves Christian and to claim that the blood of Jesus covers them - they become the accursed of 1 Corinthians 11:30-31. This is why the world is suffering such violence and chaos (1 Corinthians 12:26, Luke 15:4-7, Zechariah 13:7).
I hope this isn't too much more than you needed to know!
