Why can I not pray with the depth I desire? Because prayer is a spiritual discipline that directly attacks my innate inclination to self-justify and my resistance to spiritual disciplines. Our Lord and Savior presented prayer as the spiritual discipline that empowers us to handle and overcome temptation: Matthew 26: 41 " Stay alert and pray so that you won't give in to temptation. The spirit is eager, but the flesh is weak." The apostle Paul describes our resistance as an internal battle; Galatians 5:17 " A person's selfish desires are set against the Spirit, and the Spirit is set against one's selfish desires. They are opposed to each other, so you shouldn't do whatever you want to do ."

 

So, the first thing I do: recognize what distracts and inclines me not to pray. Most of all, I am, myself the biggest distraction. I am confessing: I am an expert at finding reasons not to pray. Why is this happening? I could quote dozens of articles and thousands of explanations, but I want to keep it simple. I summarize it in the following way: We do not pray because we do not have a definite goal of our discipleship in Christ Jesus. Therefore, praying is not a priority.

We do not know where we are in HIM and consequently our final goal. The neglect of not knowing who we are in Christ clouds our understanding. We are not seeing the privilege we have of being the representation of the Body of Christ today, here and now on earth. Not knowing and clouded understanding of the goal had us out of focus and justifies our carelessness for a deep spiritual life.