In the first place let us set before us quite clearly this great fact.
God, as He has been revealed to us by His Son, wishes us to pray to
Him. Prayer--the privilege, the duty and the value of prayer--is part
of the revelation of God. It goes with His nature, as that nature has
been revealed to us. He is the God Who wishes us to speak to Him, and
to take Him into our confidence,--in a word He is the God Who wishes us
to treat Him as Father. What is prayer? There is God ready to hear
us, ready to heal and guide, to give rest and peace, to give light and
strength, to help carry our cares, to direct our feet into straight
paths. And here are we with our great needs, our cares and
perplexities. Prayer is the point of contact between ourselves and
that great God. Indeed, we can say more than that, for when we pray we
become our true selves. We are spirits of Eternity. For a time we
live upon this earth having many duties to perform, and many important
offices to fulfil,--but when we pray, when we praise God, we are
performing our essential work as spirits. We have dropped for the
moment the outer covering of our lives, and stand forth as being what
we really are,--spirits who came from God, who are doing a certain work
for God here, and are to return to God. The moment of prayer is a
great moment, for then it is that "deep calleth to deep", and spirit
calleth to the Father and Source of all spirits. And so it comes to
pass that in the moment of prayer it is not merely that this man or
woman, called by this name or that here on earth,--a workman, a
business man, a housekeeper,--but an eternal spirit of God is calling
upon the Author of all Spirits. Such is prayer. "Prayer is that act
by which man, conscious alike of his weakness and his immortality, puts
himself into real and effective communication with the Eternal, the
Self-Existent and the Uplifted God."[1]