A conviction to pray

Every so often the Lord breaks me to the point of tears and He shows me my heart. I cannot help but choke at the inequity that is within me. There is a natural inclination, because of sin, to want to be independent from God, to want to be in control, to compete for glory with God. We want what we want and we want it now. To make ourselves feel better we often throw in a sugar-coated version of our sin by saying a little prayer that is nothing but routine veil to a conscience that we seek to deceive into not feeling guilty. Today I am broken because I have been seeking to do things on my own. It is at these times that I take a spiritual inventory into my life and ask the Lord to show me my sin.
One area that I always have to start on is how my prayer life is. There is the danger of making prayer into a routine. We forget that it is a direct communion with a loving God. There is a lot of meaning when one approaches God as our Father. 'Father' is a term of intimacy 'like daddy' but with so much more into it. When we claim we have a relationship with God, we should see Him as a loving Father who is in control of everything and wants the best for us. He is not a distant being that seems to be miles away and prayer just like a piece of mail you are sending for Him to open it when He has time. He is not an angry cruel king that only once in a while agrees to give ear to your prayers. We don't often think of it in these exact terms but our attitude certainly portrays that. He is God, our Father, who loves us and knows our needs.
One author once described a lack of serious prayer as a declaration of independence from God. I find this so true in the sense that when one does not go to the Lord in serious prayer he is in essence saying that 'I can do it by myself.' When we make prayer into nothing but three sentence petitions we are not praying. When we make prayer into nothing but something that has to fit into our schedule, we are not praying. When we make prayer into nothing but something we do only when others are there, we are not praying. When prayer becomes to us nothing but an inconvenience in our lives, we are not praying.
There is a direct relationship between prayer and God. What we show as an attitude towards prayer can be directly linked to our attitude towards God. I know this may be a controversial thing to say but I sincerely believe it. When prayer has been reduced to a few sentences in our life, then God is not worth anything more than that. I would rather spend a million sentences on people, not to discount the fact that this is in my own strength and and sinning. When prayer has been reduced to something that has to fit in our schedule, we are saying that God has to fit in our schedule. When prayer is something that we only do when others are around, it says something about my own relationship with God. Granted, we are to pray with others as well but I believe the bulk of our time should be in personal prayer with God. If not, we might want to ask ourselves why. Why am I not comfortable with just me and my Father? Is there unconfessed sin or habitual sin we are enjoying and feel guilty when it's just me and Him but safer in numbers? When prayer has become nothing but an inconvenience in our lives we are saying that God has become an inconvenience in our lives. Our attitude to prayer is directly linked to our attitude toward God.
When should I be praying? Always. Paul writes that we should do this always in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. This does not mean I am always to be on my knees 24/7 but it does still mean I need to be on my knees. The other reference to it is that I need to have an attitude built upon acknowledging my dependence on God, realizing His presence within us and determining to obey Him fully. Our day should thus have that balance when we are on our knees spending quality time with Him, and small frequent prayers during our day. Pray for having a right attitude toward someone, pray for someone who reviles you, pray for an unbeliever, pray for an accident you just encountered on the freeway, pray...