If you had an abusive father or an absentee dad, it'll take you a while to believe and act on the fact that God as your heavenly Father is not like that. He is the Dad who loves you and that you can come to any time day or night knowing He'll be there for you. When you finally accept that God is the Father you always wanted, then prayer becomes simply talking to your Dad.
 

If God is our loving Father, why don't we spend more time with Him?
 

One reason is that while His love draws us, His holiness intimidates us.  When Isaiah saw the Lord in the Temple, he cried, "Woe is me!" (Isaiah 6:5).  Being in our Father's presence forces us to look more closely at ourselves to see how strong or weak the family resemblance is. That's why David said, "The Lord is like a Father to His children, tender and compassionate . . . for He understands how weak we are" (Psalm 103:13 - 14 NLT).
 

All of us long to be understood. It's exhausting to be with people who audit our every move and constantly demand that we qualify every statement. But our Father is not like that. We don't have to try to get God to understand us. He knows what both our speech and our silence suggest, so sometimes the best thing to do is just crawl up into His lap, look into His face and just say -