The Purpose Of Prayer...

In short, the purpose of prayer is prayer!  We don't pray to achieve our will, but God's will; not to incline God to our way of thinking or to get His approbation of our plans, but to seek to align our wills with His and to straighten out our thinking by seeing His side and coming around to His way of thinking.  It has been said that it's better to have a heart for prayer and to be compassionate than to be articulate in doing so without proper feeling.  We don't come to God with our plans, but seek His plan--and He has no Plan B!  God needs no backup plan.  God will achieve His will, with or without our cooperation and input.  A successful prayer doesn't change God, for He cannot change, but changes us!  Your prayer is answered when you feel transformed and make "contact" so to speak!

We are thus transformed by a personal encounter with the Almighty in the throne room of grace.  We have this awesome privilege, yet rarely fully realize the potential, though the Holy Spirit will put our feeble prayers and words into articulate ones fit for God.  Hence, we can be ourselves in prayer and shouldn't try to be what we aren't--we should pray as we feel wont to do and let the Holy Spirit aid in our weakness.  We all have flaws and need to realize our unworthiness in coming to God and how grace makes it all possible.  And so, the successful prayer reaches out to God's will and seeks it to apply to our needs as well as those of others in the neglected ministry of intercession.

We pray to engage in an ongoing fellowship with God the Father in the name of Jesus the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit, but it isn't necessary to be impeccably correct in our doctrine of prayer to be effectual or heard, but if we seek the truth this is what the Bible teaches--it doesn't really matter what we think, but what is taught; however, some prayer warriors do not have a doctrine on prayer at all, but just pray!  The assumption of fellowship is no unconfessed sin:  "If I had cherished iniquity in my heart the Lord would not have listened," (Psa. 66:18, ESV).

The best way to accomplish this is by keeping short accounts with God and not let the sin list accumulate--confess instantly upon conviction and you'll find the closer you get to God, the more conscious of sin!   Not knowing etiquette or procedure doesn't render the prayer ineffectual; however, at the most, it's ignorant but God does still hear it.  God would have us not unaware!  The whole purpose of praying constantly in the Spirit is to stay in touch with God in fellowship and open dialogue.

We ought to be so comfortable and natural in prayer that this is the first place we go, not the last resort!  As they say, when we can't stand life, we kneel!  Our trials are meant to keep us on our knees!  A noble goal is to stay in fellowship with God the Father continually no matter our activity, which is called the practice of the presence of God (per Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century Carmelite monk in a monastery). When we realize the potential of the purpose of prayer we can always know we have a friend in Jesus to talk to and someone to sympathize with our weaknesses.  All because He knows that our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak!

Note that the person who doesn't pray has no advantage over the person who can't pray.  We must never feel out of our league or that our anemic prayers aren't getting through!  We all start somewhere and must grow in prayer like a muscle that needs exercise that atrophies without usage but strong as one communes with the Almighty in more and more intimacy.

We must not feel that we have to get our way all the time or our will done and that it's only a matter of faith.  God is only doing the right thing by rejecting some of our prayers because He is wise and is doing what's best for us.  If we only got our way all the time we would foul up our life! We will all thank God for Providence that knows what's best for us!  We must not lose faith that both the efficacy of prayer and the providence of God are both biblical and God has ordained the means to His will as to be accomplished through prayer.  The Greeks sages used to say that when the gods were angry they answered their prayers!

NB:  There are conditions to prayer, such as being in Christ's name, believing, and done according to God's will: God doesn't give us a blank check or carte blanche!  We can celebrate that God condescends to our level and knows our needs and cares enough to promise to meet them. What needs?   God has promised that He will give us everything we need to accomplish His will, and this is the bottom line.

Finally, prayer isn't complete and finished until we have come to the point of relinquishment or full surrender to His will. The greatest prayer is "Thy will be done!"   Even Jesus had to decide whether He was going to go according to His will or the Father's in the agony of Gethsemane.  We all must come to that point of decision, which is not a one-time venture but an ongoing commitment to live for Christ.  We are constantly renewing our relationship, fellowship, and commitment to Christ.   Soli Deo Gloria!