Why should we pray?

By Jimmy Hill

Why should we pray? Its a question we should regularly ponder... Often we find ourselves praying more than usual because our circumstances have not gone the way we were expecting. We fall into the trap of treating God like He is a genie in the bottle - we pray only when we need God’s intervention.

There is nothing wrong with bringing our needs before God, the Bible calls us to do so, but it's not at the heart of why we pray. At other times, we treat God like He is our boss. We believe God should answer our prayers because we have lived a ‘good’ and ‘obedient’ life. In essence, we expect God to our answer our prayers because we think our 'performance’ in life has been pretty good.

Yet Scripture tells us God does not answer our prayers based on how much we have it all together. The reality is, both of these attitudes to prayer are dangerous, for they take us away from the purpose of prayer.

In Matthew 6, Jesus outlines how and why we should pray. The Lord’s prayer begins by saying; ‘Our Father in heaven’. What this tells us is that prayer is about conversing with God. At the heart of Prayer is knowing God deeply, and experiencing the access and love of the Father.

Richard Foster says; ‘Of all the disciplines, prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father…’. Whenever we pray, we must bring to mind that God is our loving Father, and we are His treasured possession.