Why it helps to pray
Why do people pray or why do we need to pray, if God (who knows everything) already knows what we’re going to pray about? Apart from the obvious and orthodox answer that we need to pray because the Bible tells us so… let me think around a little.
This is a somewhat human-centered view on why I think it helps to pray. Talking. That’s it. Talking helps.
We all know that talking helps to work through life problems and enjoy life’s joys. Often, we actually pay big bucks to go and talk to someone (think: shrink). You often hear “oh… thank you so much! I feel so much better after talking to you!”
So, here it is again. Prayer helps, because we talk (or think).
When we pray we talk to someone from whom we know we can’t hide anything. When we pray, we talk to God, who knows more about us and our problems than we do. When we pray, we can’t lie. When we pray, we are honest to God in our wildest desires, secrets or regrets. When we pray we talk.
Talking, just by itself, helps us to work through things. Talking to someone who understands, to whom we don’t have to explain things (and who doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t interrupt) - helps even more. Talking to someone so powerful like God, leaves us with an off-chance that He my actually hear our prayer and help us (i.e., do what we ask).
It’s often said that we need pray to find out God’s will for our lives. When we pray, we talk. When we talk we work through issues. When we work through issues we see common sense. Common sense is often the right answer. So, God’s will may be just the same thing as common sense.
