Hindrances to prayer

   Why do we not pray?  What are the hindrances to prayer?  This is not a curious nor trivial question.  It goes not only to the whole matter of our praying, but to the whole matter of our religion.  Religion is bound to decline when praying is hindered.  That which hinders praying, hinders religion.  He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy life.

   Other duties become pressing and absorbing and crowd out prayer.  “Choked to death,” would be the coroner's verdict in many cases of dead praying, if an inquest could be secured on this dire, spiritual calamity.  This way of hindering prayer becomes so natural, so easy, so innocent that it comes on us all unawares.  If we will allow our praying to be crowded out, it will always be done.  Satan had rather we let the grass grow on the path to our prayer-chamber than anything else.  A closed chamber of prayer means “gone out of business” religiously or what is worse…carrying on our religion in some other name than God's and to somebody else's glory.  God's glory is only secured in the business of religion by carrying that religion on with a large capital of prayer.  The apostles understood this when they declared that their time must not be employed in even the sacred duties of alms-giving; they must give themselves, they said, “continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word,” prayer being put first with them and the ministry of the Word having its efficiency and life from prayer.

   The process of hindering prayer by crowding out is simple and goes by advancing stages.  First, prayer is hurried through.  Unrest and agitation, fatal to all devout exercises, come in.  Then the time is shortened, relish for the exercise palls.  Then it is crowded into a corner and depends on the fragments of time for its exercise.  Its value depreciates.  The duty has lots its importance.  It no longer commands respect nor brings benefit. It has fallen out of estimate, out of heart, out of the habits, out of the life.  We cease to pray and cease to live spiritually.

 — E. M. Bounds, Purpose in Prayer, ch. 10