Please note: prayer never comes out from wrong reasons. In fact, it is only the gifts of faith, hope, and love that allow us to pray.
Now you start on a wrong track by saying:
I know this is not how God operates
No, you don’t. “How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”. Don’t be distressed, but be consoled in the fact that you don’t know much about God’s way of thought. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord”.
You say
I’m experiencing some major work stress. I try to offer it up in prayer but in my heart I know it’s not true
I say, instead: you are being **tempted **to believe that it is not true, but the inner motion of your soul is to unite your personal cross to the cross of Our Lord, who also prayed that this cup of sorrows be spared to Him, if possible.
The Church blesses this attitude whereby “
the Christian faithful who, while performing their duties and enduring the difficulties of life, raise their minds in humble trust to God and make, at least mentally, some pious invocation”.
Discernment of spirits begins by discerning which thoughts lead you unto interior peace and which unto anxiety and distress. The former come from God, the latter from yourself or from the devil.
You say:
I’m essentially praying/asking for God to “bail me out”…
You mean like this:
“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me”
Yes, that is a very Christlike prayer. Just remember to always complete it:
“yet let Your will be done, not mine.”
You say:
I know my mentality is really “if I just pray a little more, do a few more rosaries etc then I will have earned God’s favor”
There are sacrifices, such as offering prayers and embracing pious devotions, that attain merits and graces from God. This is not to “earn God’s favor” per se, but you do merit specific graces. You are offering more prayers than you may be obligated to (especially if you are a lay faithful) and this is meritorious in the eyes of the Lord.
You say:
asking to draw closer to him, and to make His will, my will …frankly …terrifies me
The Passion and Cross has never been a meditation that cheers us up. Yet we know our Christian vocation: to preach Christ crucified, and to fill up in our flesh that which is wanting of the sufferings of Christ, for his body, which is the church, which is your loved ones, your friends, random forum users like me, and even those who don’t like you very much or who are no longer in this world. Fear is not the problem here. Medicine tells us that the condition by which one sweats drops of blood, hematidrosis, is triggered by extreme levels of fear, even terror, as if before one’s own death. Now the thought may terrify you, but not as much as it terrified Our Lord on Getsemane. Which is why the words of the apostles are fulfilled in us: “in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted yet to the point of shedding blood”. Remember that the one sentence that Christ spoke the most (which is the first sentence that the Archangel spoke to the Blessed Virgin) is: “Noli timere”, “Do not be afraid!”. His will for you is not as much as you think…He doesn’t trust you that much! He does, however, love you of an infinite love, and for this reason also he asks very little, even if it seems much.
Remember those two bold apostles who wanted to seat at the Lord’s right and left, and who expressed for this purpose even the willingness to drink of the same chalice of sorrows of which the Lord drinks. How fortunate for them (and for us) that the Lord said: “He who is faithful in little is also faithful in much”! Focus on the little, and if you can, offer some additional prayers. Christ will appreciate it.
I love this prayer