Brian McLaughlin has recently posted a thoughtful series on prayer, including this post which speaks to the question, “Why pray?”
Prayer is essential. Prayer is difficult. These two things all Christians accept. But why pray anyway? What’s the big deal?
I think one of the reasons that prayer is so difficult for so many people is that we don’t truly understand what it is or what it is intended to accomplish. It is not uncommon to hear someone say that prayer is important “because Jesus commanded it.” Yes, the Bible does encourage us to pray, but that doesn’t represent an understanding of why. Furthermore, it often has the effect that my wife has when she keeps “reminding” me to take out the trash; it simply isn’t very motivating.
So let’s spend a little time thinking about some basics of prayer beginning with, what is prayer?
So often I find that theologian Wayne Grudem provides some nice, succinct definitions. He defines prayer as “personal communication with God” [this resembles Dallas Willard’s definition of prayer as being an "ongoing conversation with God"]. Grudem continues to explain that this includes “prayers of request for ourselves or for others (sometimes called prayers of petition or intercession), confession of sin, adoration, praise and thanksgiving, and also God communicating to us indications of his response.”
