This is the title that I finally came up with for my upcoming prayer study. I think I like this because it speaks to what I feel some times. I mean, really what is prayer and other than I am commanded to do it why should I pray. Does prayer really accomplish anything at all?

As I have been studying about prayer I have seen one important truth that I knew, but that I apparently have been overlooking. The purpose of prayer is not to receive miracles from God. It isn’t even to receive responses from God. The purpose of prayer is communion with God. The relationship is what is important.

If I approached every conversation with my wife with the thought of “what can I get out of this” we never would have gotten married because she quickly would have run from me. We pray not for the end result of stuff, but to get to know God to spend time with him, to acknowledge in the middle of our busy disconnected lives that there is one out there who is greater than us and wonder of wonders he wants to interact with us.

Why pray? Because we need God, not his stuff or his works or his power, but we need Him and we need to know more about Him. Why pray? Because we love God and as lovers we want to spend time together. Why pray? Because he no longer calls us servants he calls us friends and he invites us into a relationship greater than any we could ever know if we will just seek him out.

Why pray? Because we won’t survive if we don’t.