“And he told them a parable to the effect that ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
Luke 18:1
A real danger to the soul is prayerlessness. The verse above demonstrates that Jesus Himself considered prayerlessness a danger to the soul: one of the purposes of the parable is in fact to convince his listeners “always to pray”.
But why is prayerlessness a danger? In prayerlessness lurks a lack of faith.
A Lack of Faith
Why would someone lack faith? Perhaps he does not believe that God hears nor cares about his problems. Why waste time then in prayer, taking problems to someone that doesn’t hear or doesn’t care?
Perhaps the lack of faith comes from the belief that God hears but is either unwilling or unable to change anything. Obviously, if God wanted something to be different, he would not need me to pray about it; he would change it himself. So why pray?
Perhaps the lack of faith comes from doubting God’s goodness or His power. The difficulties and hardships of life show that either God is not good, or He is impotent. Again, why pray if God is not good (isn’t he just going to use it against me?) or if He is impotent?
It is not only atheists or agnostics who lack faith; many Christians do as well. They would never admit this, of course; if asked about God’s power or goodness or his care for us, they would give solid and orthodox answers. In their mind, they understand these things, but the mind is not the problem; the affections and the will are the problem.
In their affections and their will, they believe differently than their mind, and this is evidenced by prayerlessness. Their prayerlessness shows that in their heart (the center of the affections and the will) they do not believe what their mind believes about God. If they believed that God were powerful, or good, or caring, then they would frequently go to the Lord in prayer. But prayerlessness shows what the heart really believes.
Fighting Prayerlessness
How then do you fight prayerlessness? You must retrain your affections and will in three ways:
First, you schedule time to prayer. We change our affections and our will through doing what we should love and desire to do. This cuts against the grain of our modern thinking; we think it is inauthentic to do something we do not love or desire to do. But this is not biblical thinking; God commands us to do many things that we do not naturally love or desire to do: love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, stop grumbling, etc. It is not inauthentic to pray if we don’t love or desire to pray; it is obedient.
So the first step in fighting prayerlessness is to schedule time to pray. Write it down in your planner. Use the Reminder app on your phone to help you remember to prayer. Have your grandmother call us you and remind you to pray. Do something to schedule times to pray. Then pray at the times scheduled.
Second, learn to pray through other’s prayers. Again this cuts against the grain: what could be more inauthentic than using someone else’s words to pray? Yet, this is exactly how Jesus taught his disciples to pray: He gave them His words to pray and to use as a model for prayer.
At your scheduled time to prayer, pray the Lord’s Prayer. Or pray a psalm. Or pray other Scripture prayers, such as Hannah’s prayer (1 Sam. 2:1-10). Or use extrabiblical prayers such as those found in The Valley of Vision, The Book of Common Prayer, or Every Moment Holy. These biblical and extrabiblical prayers can serve as guides and aids to help you learn how to pray. As athletes have trainers and coaches to help them learn new moves or strategies for a competition, the Lord has given us a bounty of prayers in the Bible and in Christian literature to help us pray.
Third, meditate on the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Read the Gospels, and see how often Jesus prayed. Examine how He prayed. Scrutinize the content of His prayers. What you will find is that prayer formed a vital part of our Lord’s life, and His example of prayer will provide encouragement meant to you to pray.
Conclusion
Prayerlessness produces Christians who rely upon themselves rather than upon God. This is the danger to the soul. Prayerlessness is a secret form of pride. We do not want to admit to God or anyone else that we are needy and helplessness. But God requires us to remember our need and our helplessness through regular prayer so that we would more and more rely upon Him and His grace.
Prayerlessness then must be fought; this is why Christ introduces the parable with stating the purpose of the parable is that Christians “ought always to pray”. Take time then today to pray to your Creator and Lord for the sake of your soul.
Ancient Words 