Why Don't We Pray?

"To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing." - Martin Luther

"I have often learned more in one prayer than I have been able to glean from much reading and reflection." - Martin Luther

"Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?" - Corrie ten Boom

"If all your prayers were answered the last 30 days, would anything change in THE world or just YOUR world?"- John Bryson

Pastor Z used to say (and I'm sure he still does) that when we get to heaven, one of the first things we'll say will be, "Why didn't I pray more?" When we see God in all His glory it will cause us to regret not constantly taking advantage of this incredible gift to converse with the Creator of the universe. Some of the following is from a Matt Chandler sermon and some is from things God has been talking to me about.

Most of us treat prayer like a chore. That seems heretical at the surface but guess what? The New Testament repeatedly acknowledges that prayer is difficult. We can't let that be an excuse not to pray but let's be honest and admit this isn't easy rather than beating ourselves up over our lack of follow through. Paul says, "Labor with me in prayer." That should say something to us if Paul views prayer as work. Our flesh and Satan certainly don't want us praying. Yet, it is integral to our Christian walk and the Bible exhorts us to be devoted to prayer - Acts 1:14, Acts 2:42, Acts 6:4, Ephesians 6:18 and Romans 12:12, which is my favorite. "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer."

So, why don't we pray more? Sure, we know it's difficult but so is work and we do that 40-60 hours or more a week. Anyone praying that much? Yeah...me neither. Anyone praying 10% of their working hours? Not me. What if you truly understood how much God wants to hear from you? Proverbs 15:8 says, "The prayer of the upright is His delight." Delighting God. That sounds like a good thing. Look at Isaiah 65:24 and Revelation 5:8 as well. Isaiah 62:6-7 takes it a step further. God doesn't just want to hear from us a couple times a day. He wants us to pester Him. He wants us to be the 4-year old saying his name over and over. When all mom wants is a moment of peace, God wants more of us.

We don't pray because of 2 primary issues. The first is pride. Prayer is designed to show the complete sufficiency of God and the complete helplessness of man. We humans aren't big on being helpless. This is why many prayers are spoken only after we no longer believe we can do anything to affect the outcome. So, we finally put it into God's hands when we feel there is no other choice. I am still on my old church's prayer chain and probably 90% of the prayer requests revolve around health issues. Now, there is nothing wrong with praying for healing and God's blessings on our physical health. I think we have to be careful about ONLY asking for healing and not for courage or strength or wisdom as to why God is allowing this season of suffering. But healing prayer is good prayer. However, I would love to see other prayer requests that aren't a last resort. Prayers like "help me show more grace to my wife" or "wisdom on how to love my neighbor better" or "humility at work after being given a promotion". Those would be great to see.

The other issue is we don't understand the story we are in. I loved that Chandler put it this way. Too many of us live in the story we have constructed for ourselves. The story inevitably has us in the center with us attempting to arrange for the life that revolves around us - work, family, recreation, church, friendships, etc. This is what keeps us so busy, where we feel like there is no time for anything else. All our energy is spent on making our story work as well as it possibly can. But we have been fooled into thinking this is the PRIMARY story. It's not.

Eldredge writes..."I am staggered by the level of naivete that most people live with regarding evil. They don't take it seriously. They don't live as though the Story has a Villain. Not the devil prancing about in red tights, carrying a pitchfork, but the incarnation of the very worst of every enemy you've met in every other story. Dear God - the Holocaust, child prostitution, terrorist bombings, genocidal governments. What is it going to take for us to take evil seriously? Life is very confusing if you do not take into account that there is a Villain. That you, my friend, have an Enemy. One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe - a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death, disease, and sin . . . Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees . . . this is a universe at war."

That's the REAL story. If you truly understood that your greatest enemy was after your family, your friends, and yes, YOU...you would pray a whole lot more. You have been fooled into thinking that Satan is weak and ineffective and not worth contemplating. He has already succeeded in convincing you that there is no battle so you can go blissfully along unaware of what is truly transpiring around you and in you. It's time for all of us to wake up.

11Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. - Romans 13:11-12 (ESV)

“I would rather teach one man to pray than ten men to preach.” - Charles Spurgeon