God's view on prayer is profound. Jesus taught "your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him." However, God still commands us to pray. He already knows what we will pray for. He knows how best to help us. He knows our needs way better than we ourselves even know. So why does he command us to pray?

The Bible Dictionary says that "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence." When we pray, we should not try to convince God to do what we ask of him. We are not trying to show him that we deserve the blessings we are asking for. We are not trying to check off a box on our list of things to do. We are trying to join our will with our Father's. And we know that God's will isn't changing so we are the ones that need to be changing. This is why two crucial aspects of prayer are humility and listening. Christ is our perfect example of this. In the Garden of Gethsemane, as he was feeling the weight of all the sins of the the world, he cried out "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." At this unimaginable moment our Savior turned to prayer. He poured out his soul to God and his soul was filled with humility. His prayer allowed him to be able to turn his will over to God's.

Our prayers need to be the same. We need to bare our souls before God. We cannot hide. This means we need to remove our pride and be filled with humility. An important part of humility is not always asking for things that we need or want, but asking God what he needs from us. Once we are humble we need to listen. God answers our prayers in different ways. We need to take time after our prayers to listen. As we pray humbly and listen to the promptings we receive, our desires will begin to correspond with God's desires for us. We will have a closer relationship with our Father and we will be much happier.