Why pray?

Posted by Richard on February 21, 2009

An anonymous reader asks:

Why do we pray?

Why do we pray?
First, an introduction from John MacArthur¹:

If reading the Bible is like eating, praying is like breathing.

You exist when you come into the world in an atmosphere. And one of the things that the atmosphere does is put pressure on your lungs. And from the very beginning you breathe. And the reason you breathe is because of the air pressure that is exerted against your lungs, it forces your lungs to take air in. That’s why it’s much more difficult to hold your breath than it is to breathe. You hold your breath for about a minute and you turn purple and your heart starts pounding and you get sweaty because you’re resisting the normal pressure against your lung. Well prayer is like that. When you’re born into the family of God, when you’re born again, when you become a child of God, you enter into God’s world there is a sphere in which you live. The atmosphere of God’s presence and grace exerts pressure on your life and the normal thing is to breathe and we just say that’s prayer, responding to God’s pressure and presence in your life. Prayer is as normal to the Christian as breathing is to the human. You live in an atmosphere and you respond to that atmosphere of the presence of God by receiving that presence of God and by taking it in and putting it back out again in response to Him.
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Prayer activates the power of God. God moves in response to the prayers of His people. So prayer not only moves God to act but prayer is to align us with the will and purpose of God. When we pray in the will of God or in accord with God’s will we are lining up with His purposes.
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We would say that prayer is simply is talking to God. You know, and one of the things that happens when a baby comes into a family is that the first thing you want the baby to do is…what? The first thing that you want out of new life is communication. You want some response, and that’s the same as a Christian. The thing that happens when you become a Christian is immediately you’re thrown into an environment with God when you have a tremendous desire to communicate with God, to respond and say the things that are on your heart. Now that’s all prayer is.

Now to address the question:

First, God wants us to pray.
In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus instructs us to “pray and not lose heart.”
Second, Jesus prayed so we should pray too.
We should model ourselves after the pattern Jesus set for us. In Luke 5:16, it shows that Jesus often went into private to pray to the Father.
He instructed us how we should pray with the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:5-15
Finally, God answers prayer.
God has ordained prayer as a means through which he accomplishes his will. In Luke 11:5-13 Jesus shows us that by asking things of the father, in accordance with his will or goals, will produce response.