It’s pretty crazy if you think about it. We have an open invitation from the ruler of the universe to come chat with him anytime. It would take us a month to get a meeting with our city councilman, but we can march right into the throne room of the King of Kings any time we want, and just start talking.

Why don’t we take advantage of that? According to one survey, most Christians spend less than 5 minutes praying every day. Why is that?

What if it was the President? He’s here every Christmas. What if he invited you to hang out over at his beach-house in Kailua every day? How would you respond? “Yeah, that sounds nice, but I can only spare 5 minutes a day.” Really? What would be holding you back from hanging out with the president?

Maybe it’s what you think about the president. Maybe you’re really busy with other stuff. Or maybe you’re just lazy and you don’t want to drive all the way over the Pali every day.

I think those are some of the same reasons why we don’t spend more time with God. We have certain thoughts about him. We’re busy with other things. Or we’re just plain lazy.

Jesus identified some of these problems when he gave us the Lord’s Prayer. It’s not just a profound instruction manual on how to pray, it’s also a diagnostic tool that can help us understand why we don’t pray. If we don’t believe and appreciate the things Jesus brings up in this prayer, we probably won’t be praying.

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matthew 6:9-13)

Jesus says we’re supposed to be praying “Our father in heaven.” But many people believe (at least down deep) that they don’t really need a father in heaven. They think they’re doing just fine on their own.

We’re supposed to be praying, “Your kingdom come your will be done.” Instead we live like my kingdom should come and my will should be done.

We should be praying, “Give us this day our daily bread.” But most of the time we just assume we’ll have bread on our table, and we know we can hustle a little more if we want more bread on the table, so we don’t really need to ask for it.

We’re supposed to be praying, “Forgive us our sins.” But many times our sins don’t even register in our minds. We don’t even realize we need forgiveness. Then other times, we might suspect that God doesn’t want to forgive us. Every couple I know who’s had trouble conceiving children wonders if God is still punishing them for something they might have done 10 or 20 years ago.

There are natural consequences to sin, but many Christians go far beyond that. We think God has it in for us. We believe he keeps punishing us for our sin, until we’ve suffered enough and payed enough penance to make up for our sin.

It sounds humble to believe something like that, but it’s actually refusing to believe that God’s grace is big enough to cover our sin. We’re denigrating the death of Jesus, and elevating our own ability to pay for our sin.

And what is that, but pride? All of the things that keep us from prayer could be categorized the same way. We don’t depend on God for forgiveness, sustenance, or guidance, we depend only on ourselves. “In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek the Lord” says Psalm 10:4. Proud people don’t pray.

So the first step in becoming more prayerful is to pray for God to kill our pride. Here’s a prayer from the Puritan collection of prayers in the Valley of Vision that’s a good start:

O Lord, No day of my life has passed
That has not proved me guilty in your sight.
Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart.
Praise has been often a praiseless sound;
My best services are filthy rags.

Blessed Jesus, let me find a shelter in your peacemaking wounds.
Though my sins rise to heaven your merits rise above them;
Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell,
Your righteousness exalts to your throne.