I don't know about you, but I have a problem. That problem seems to be pretty common among North American Christians today - it's a prayerlessness in our lives. We don't pray. But why? And what does that display? Well, the other night, when I was thinking about the lack of prayer in my own life, I thought about a list of things that our prayerlessness says about us:
- We have a lack of faith. This is often brought to light in relation to prayer. When we don't pray, we demonstrate that we do not have faith in God to answer our prayers or we demonstrate that we don't need to cling to God in prayer. It demonstrates a self-sufficiency and lack of reliance on the Lord.
- We have a lack of fear. A proper and right recognition of God's character should strike a holy fear in our hearts and throw us to our knees. If we aren't praying, it shows that we are not fearing God.
- We have a lack of fellowship. If I have a strong relationship with my mother, I'm not going to never talk to her. On the contrary, I'm going to talk to her all the time. And that's the same with our relationship with the Lord. If we're never praying to Him, our fellowship must be very weak or practically nonexistent.
- We have a lack of favouritism. God needs to be the top priority in our lives, the thing of most importance, the favourite. But if we're not even talking to Him, we're aren't showing Him favourtism. Prayer and our relationship with Him is being put on the back burner of our lives for stuff "more important." But when we choose to sacrifice our prayer life for other things, we're demonstrating that God is not the favourite, most important thing in our lives.
- We have a lack of feeling. As John Piper so famously said, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." When we desire God, we want to talk to Him. When we are yearning for Him, we will always be praying. But when we're not praying, it shows that we have no feeling for God, no desire or love.
Wow, after re-reading that list, I almost want to delete this post it's so convicting. But I won't. Because this makes me want to pray more. It challenges me, makes me not want to lack faith, fear, fellowship, favourtism, or feeling. It makes me want to get on my knees and grow closer to God. And I hope it does the same for you.