"Is that your cell phone ringing?" We hear this everyday, don’t we? Everyone seems to have a cell phone, and most people have one with country-wide coverage. There are very few places where you can’t receive a cell phone signal.

In many ways your prayer life is like a cell phone—you can pray anytime you want, anywhere you want, for as long as you want. But unlike a cell phone, prayer has no fees or roaming charges. You also never have to scroll through a directory to find God’s number. And your communication with God requires no ear piece—it’s "hands free." Plus you have a direct line to the God of the universe 24/7—24 hours a day, 7 days a week. How’s that for technology? Divine technology, that is.

With the details of prayer being as easy as bowing your head and simply talking your life over with God, you’d think that we’d pray a lot more than we do. Have you ever thought about why you don’t pray more? I’m sure you have. And so have I...all the time, in fact! As I look at my own heart and life, I’ve discovered some reasons—and excuses—for not praying.

1. Worldliness—Our world effects us more than we think. It exerts a constant pressure on us to conform and live like the world lives...instead of living our lives God’s way. And besides, because we have food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, and lots of fun things to do, we wrongly decide, "Why do I need to talk to God? I’ve got everything I need without wasting my time praying!"

2. Busyness—Another reason we don’t pray is because, like Jason, we don’t take the time or make an effort to pray. Prayer isn’t a priority for us, so we fill our time with other seemingly more important things. We’re so busy we don’t even get around to planning the act of praying into our daily life!

3. Foolishness—Whenever we’re consumed with what’s foolish, trivial, and meaningless, we fail to pray. We begin to lose our ability to know the difference between what is good and what is evil. Between what is essential and that which has little eternal value. Everything becomes a "gray area" which doesn’t require prayer. (Or so we think!)

4. Distance—We have no problem talking with our friends. Jason and his friend Jack could talk about football for hours—and they do! But talk to someone outside your circle? Forget it! It’s the same thing with talking to God. When your relationship with God isn’t a close one, you find it hard to talk to Him. You just don’t know what to say, and you don’t feel close to Him or comfortable in His presence.

5. Ignorance—We’re clueless about how prayer works. And we don’t understand how it helps or fits into our relationship with God and making right choices. In essence, we really don’t understand God’s love for us and His power to make our lives better.

6. Sinfulness—We don’t pray because we know we’ve done something wrong. In our hearts we know we need to talk to God about it, confess it, agree with Him that what we did is wrong. What can we do about our sins and failures? Make a choice to keep short accounts with God. Deal with any sin as it comes up—on the spot—at the exact minute that you slip up and fail!

7. Faithlessness—We don’t really believe in the power of prayer. That’s because we don’t know the dazzling promises God has made to us about prayer. We don’t know about His assurances of answered prayer. Therefore we don’t think prayer makes any difference. So...we don’t pray.

8. Pridefulness—Prayer shows our dependence on God. When we fail to pray, in our pride we’re saying that we don’t have any needs...or worse, we’re saying, "God, I’ll take care of myself, thank You!"

9. Inexperience—We don’t pray because...we don’t pray! And because we don’t pray, we don’t know how to pray...so we don’t pray! We’re like a dog chasing after its tail. It’s a cycle that leads nowhere!

10. Laziness—Maybe this reason why we don’t pray is the chief obstacle. We simply can’t or won’t put out the effort to talk to God. Prayer is an act of the will. It’s a choice. You have to want to do it...and choose to do it.