Why don’t people pray (i.e. you and me, believers in general)?  It is because we believe deep down in our hearts that something else is more important, more interesting, more pleasurable, more fun, more pressing, more rewarding, more profitable, more delightful and more reasonable.  We believe that some other activity—sleeping, working, watching, playing, drinking, fidgeting, laughing, talking, complaining, copulating, sinning, reading, exercising, web-surfing, drooling—is somehow more important and will bring about the sensations we desire.  We believe in the end we will be more happy, joyful, satisfied, safe, secure, loved, lauded, lusted after, healthy, successful, sensible and sound than we would have been had we taken a moment to speak with and be spoken to by God.  We don’t pray not because we don’t have spare moments in which to pray, but because we don’t really think that any good will come of it.  True, we may in our minds believe that prayer is beneficial, and talking to God is a great privilege that Christ has purchased for us.  Our hearts have not embraced reality and our lives go on much the way they always have.   Our hearts have an insatiable desire to be amused and have not learned from our minds that God’s glory merits and rewards those who take time to gaze upon it. 

Why don’t we pray?  Idolatry.  What do we do?  Adultery.  We play the harlot with things that for the most part are not evil in and of themselves.  They become evil by letting our hearts neglect God’s presence for them because of the rewards we believe they offer us in return for our devotion.

Does our prayerlessness ultimately uncover our understanding of prayer?  Yes, but more importantly it uncovers our true understanding and image of God!  Prayer is talking to and listening to God.  The idea that something would be more precious to us is not surprising, but is utterly inexplicable and indefensible.