What is prayer?

This semester we are going to be studying about prayer in our church Bible study. I'm looking forward to it, especially since one of my 2010 goals is grow in my prayer life. So I pulled out all the books I have on prayer; I didn't realize how many I had, probably too many. I could easily get busy and caught up in reading all these great books on prayer and never read what the Bible has to say on prayer and forget to actually pray. So, hopefully, I'll have some balance in my reading.

I started looking at "what is prayer". Here are a few answers from some notes I had from a seminar I taught on prayer a couple years.

From the Bible I see many people praying to God....in each case, it is someone simply talking to God. Some people are asking for needs to be met, some are simply praising God for Who He is, some are seeking forgiveness for being disobedient, some are seeking to be saved from trouble, some are praying on behalf of other people, some just want to know God more.

Pryaing is a soul attitude, a "lifting up of the mind to God".

Prayer is communicating with God. A conversation that can be spoken or silent, or even expressed in song. It is working with God to accomplish His goals.

Prayer is meant to be the conversation where your life and your God meet. Prayer is simply the medium through which we know God and connect to God. The focus is not on praying, but on God.

Prayer is a dialogue between God and me, not a monologue.

The essense of prayer is talking to God as you would to a beloved parent.

The chief purpose of prayer is to recognize the presence of the heavenly Father.

Prayer bathes the soul in an atmosphere of the divine presence.

Prayer more than anything else is sharing the needs and the burdens and the hungers of my heart with the God who cares. It's communion. It isn't getting things. It isn't forcing God to do something. It is just opening my soul to one who cares and that communes with me. As Luther said, "prayer is much more God instructing us than ever is it God being instructed by us." Prayer is saying oh God, I come to you with the needs of my heart, display Your glory.