One of the common reactions people have when the topic of prayer is mentioned, discussed or preached on is guilt. I don't pray enough, I haven't prayed today, I'm not sure how to pray, It just feels like God isn't there, and so on are all responses I have heard, often followed by a line like I know I should pray more but I find it hard and I feel guilty.
This often isn't helped by having examples of great saints from the past who rose in the early hours of the morning to pray for hours laid before them, to many it makes them feel worse and they despair of ever being able to pray like that so they give up.
The Bible certainly calls on us to pray, Jesus provides a great pattern of prayer we read of often how he would withdraw to pray. We see him teach his disciples how to pray (Luke 11), in Luke 18 he teaches his disciples to always pray and never give up. We see in Acts that the early church is a praying church and the apostle Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to pray continually. Praying is a great thing that the Bible calls on us to do.
But is prayerlessness a sin? Fascinatingly the Bible does not address that question because unlike us it does not view prayer as a chore, it is a privilege, a mark of sonship. To be prayerless would be a bit like being breathless. The New Testament assumes that the disciple will want to speak to their father.
Prayerlessness is not a sin like greed or idolatry, but it is a symptom of either a misunderstanding of what prayer is, or misunderstanding the privilege that is ours in knowing God and being his children, or a symptom of sin. Prayerlessness can be a vital warning indicator of a spiritual malaise or malady. Yet God our Father always waits to hear his children speak to him.
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