Why Do We Pray? (Adapted from Jesus' Blueprint For Prayer)

Any thoughtful person wrestling with prayer asks, ''Why pray at all?''  Is the basic purpose of prayer to get things from God?  George
MacDonald offered this rationale for prayer.

      What if God knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most?  What if the main object in God's idea of prayer is a supplying of our great, our endless need- the need of Himself?....
 Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all
   other need.  Prayer is the beginning of that communion, of talking
   with God, a coming-to-one with Him, which is the sole end of
       prayer, yea, of existence itself.


  God wants us for Himself.  He desires communion with us.  His
  purpose in prayer is not to make us sit up and beg.  He wants us
   to know Him.  Prayer is His method to accomplish that.
 
  But sometimes when we pray we concentrate on the gifts in God's
  hand and ignore the hand of God Himself.  We pray fervently
  for a new job, or for the return of health.  When we gain the prize,
  we are delighted.  And then we have little more to do with God.
     God's hand serves only a way to pay the rent, heal the sickness,
        or get through a crisis.  After the need has been met, the hand
    itself means little to us.

 While God in His grace does give good gifts to His children, He
 offers much more than that.  He offers us Himself.  Those who
are merely satisfied with the trinkets in the Father's hand miss the
 best reward of communicating and communing with the God of
  the universe.

 God has made Himself known through His Son Jesus Christ, who
  died on the cross and rose again to pay the penalty for our sin.
 If you don't know Christ as your Saviour, go to Him in prayer-
  maybe for the first time- confess your sin, and receive the forgiveness you need.  John3:16 says:
    
          For God so loved the world that He gave His only
          begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
            not perish but have everlasting life.

 When you accept Jesus' salvation, you'll begin that all-important
  communication with God, which is as essential to your spiritual

  well-being as breathing is to your physical life.