I have assurance of my salvation, but my prayer life is still awful. I never have any desire to pray, and when I do pray, it's always half-hearted and empty. I've tried disciplining myself and just forcing myself to pray even when I don't feel like it, but that usually leaves me more discouraged than when I started. I feel so guilty over my prayerlessness, but I can't seem to improve. I've cried out to God so many times, begging Him, "Lord, help me to pray more," "God, give me the discipline to pray," and "Father, please give me motivation to pray." But it never changes. I just want to be able to enjoy communion with my Savior.

I understand this all too well. I have gone through this a lot. Something that helped me is just talking to God randomly. Like yesterday when I saw 2 sunflowers growing in the freeway. I just said God thanks that was cool to see. It may not seem like a prayer but I believe prayer is a conversation with God so I see stuff and thank him or pray for the situation I come across. I may do it halfhearted but it’s still talking to him. As long as you’re including Him I honestly think you’re good.

I completely relate. This is one of those instances where mental health and legitimate Christian desires converge and get blurry. I am a Christian and struggle with what is called "scrupulousity" in my OCD. As a matter of faith, a question to ask here may be "do I really believe, based on what God has revealed in scripture, that He wants me to feel like a worthless guilty failure because I don't _______ often enough?" If the answer is no, then we can start there. Maybe the issue is not that we don't pray enough, but that we feel there is some certain amount we must pray to keep God's affections. When you think of it like that the OCD may get exposed for the imposter that it is, tricking us and invading our faith. Hope that makes some sense.

Also, it helps to bear in mind that so much that is preached and written in Christian teaching is done so with a "normal" audience in mind. When we hear a sermon on prayer, and the need to pray more often, our personal struggles send us down a path the preacher probably never intended. We rarely consider that the majority of the audience being spoken to may need to hear that to motivate them from complacency. We have to apply a different lens sometimes because we understand our own unique position in this scenario... again, hope that makes sense.

Like raeray said, prayer is just talking to God. It doesn't have to be all formal or anything, you can just talk to God throughout your day about anything. Maybe just every day start off by thanking God for His love that saves you and makes you His child. Right there you just prayed in a very simple and beautiful way. Or what concerns you tell Him about it and that is considered prayer.