Why don't we pray?

When you read the title of this post you probably thought one of two things: "I do pray thank you very much" or "Because it is useless". If the latter I am sorry that the world has caused you to doubt the serious amount of power you have when you pray to the Creator of the universe. When we pray we have the ability to change situations (ask Moses about the time God wanted to destroy the rebellious Israelites and Moses interceded for them in prayer), the power to stop the rain for years, the power to make the sun stand still, and the privilege of sharing our blessings and our pains with a God who cares what is going on in our daily lives. Those are some serious results from something as simple as having a conversation with the One who hears every word we say.

Maybe it's not just why don't we pray, but why don't we pray like we are speaking to the only One who can change our circumstances, the only One who has power over what is happening, the only One who cares enough to take our prayers into consideration?

This is a new concept in my own life as well. There are things that I want more than anything else in the world, but I am too afraid, too timid, too scared to seem desperate to ask God for what I want and need.

Here is an example: most of my life I have wanted one thing, to be the wife of an amazing, God-fearing man, but it wasn't until just recently that I started praying for him. Now I find myself praying for him as I drift off to sleep, while I'm driving to work, and so many other places. I do a lot of praying for the man he is becoming, but also for where ever he is at that moment and that what he is doing is honoring God.

I think it is important to be praying for him, and I hope he is praying for me too. But I have noticed that in my church, and probably a lot of churches across the country, praying for your future spouse has become of sign of desperation or weakness. Whether we realize it or not, the feminist, women are equals and independent, attitude have seeped into the church. I'm not saying that being independent is necessarily bad, but I see it as the reason people are marrying later in life, divorces happen more and more frequently and there has even been a rise in women abandoning their husbands and kids to live their own lives. The world tells single girls that living on our own and becoming your own woman is what life is all about. It tells us that we do not need a man to complete us because we can go out and sleep with whoever we want to and have no consequences. It is trying really hard to make us believe that by wanting to get married and have a family is a last resort or an act of desperation on our part. Marriage and God honoring relationships are no longer viewed as desirable, even in the church culture of America and it is heartbreaking.

Any thoughts on this topic?