One of the most important aspects of the spiritual life is centered around the discipline of prayer.

Prayer is an essential part of the inner life because it is an integral part of communication, and communion, with the Father. We receive our communication from God through his Word and other means. But our communication back to God comes through the medium of prayer.

Prayer is more than just talking with God. All too often, we have a misconception that our prayers to God should be like a heavenly vending machine. We submit our requests and sit back and wait for the answers to pop out.

That’s not what prayer is about.

Prayer is much richer and deeper than we can possibly realize. In the next few paragraphs, I want to share something of the importance of prayer. This topic is so critical that books have been written about it, and there are many excellent ones to research. One of my favorite resources is The Complete Works Of E. M. Bounds On Prayer. Of all the works on prayer that I’ve read, this one impacted my life more than any other. If you want to read it, I highly recommend it.

There are scores of examples of prayer throughout the Bible, and dozens of passages that give us a glimpse of what prayer is. Prayer is powerful. Prayer is communication. Prayer is effective. Prayer is asking. Prayer is listening. Prayer changes God’s mind. Prayer is an essential part of the life of the believer.

But there are four main aspects that I think are helpful to remember about prayer. These describe prayer quite accurately, but not completely. Prayer is each of these four things. But prayer is also so much more than just these four things as well.

Adoration

Adoration is simply giving our adoration, our praise, to the one worthy of it. We throw this word around a lot in our culture today. “I adore my wife.” “I adore that shirt.” “That child is adorable.” But really, there is only one that is worth our adoration, God himself.

In Ephesians 3, Paul thanks God for the Ephesian believers. He has invested a lot in these people, and has mentored Timothy, who was leading the Ephesian church when Paul penned both of his letters to Timothy. During Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, he took the time to express his praise and adoration to God.

In a similar fashion, David expressed praise and adoration multiple times. Take a look through the Psalms and see just how often David expressed his praise to God. Psalm 148 is an excellent example, or David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:10-13.

Confession

Confession is an aspect of prayer that we neglect too much, I fear. We tend to do too much asking for things, and confession gets brushed to the side. In John’s first letter he writes this:

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Confession is a crucial part of prayer because it is a critical part of our salvation. Christ’s actions upon the cross paid for our sins. His mercy and forgiveness make us right before God.

A perfect example of this is again from the life of David. Just after his sin with Bathsheba, and his complicity in the death of Uriah, the prophet Nathan confronts David with his sin. David’s repentance and confession is recorded in Psalm 51, and it is a beautiful thing to read, showing how God restores us when we repent and confess. Even in spite of this colossal failure, David was still called a man after God’s own heart. That’s because he confessed and repented, and was made clean.

Thanksgiving

There are numerous passages where we are told to be thankful. Paul encourages us in Ephesians 5:20 to always give thanks to God for everything. In Colossians 4:2, he tells us to devote ourselves to prayer, being thankful. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18, once again Paul instructs us to pray continually, giving thanks in all circumstances.

Thankfulness is an attitude that we need to cultivate in our lives. Our society is permeated with stress and anxiety. But Paul has the answer to that. Instead of anxiety, he says in Philippians, “in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Christ is the perfect example of thankfulness in prayer. He thanked God when he raised Lazarus from the dead. He thanked God when he fed the 5000. He thanked God in the upper room, during the last supper. He thanked God in his prayers frequently.

Daniel is also a great example of thankfulness in prayer. According to Daniel 6:10, Daniel’s custom was to kneel and pray, giving thanks to God at least three times a day.

Supplication

Here is the part we are good at. We frequently ask God for things, for ourselves, and for others. And that is exactly what supplication is; it is making our requests to God. The word itself conveys the meaning of asking or even begging for something earnestly and humbly. So this is not a simple question posed to God, asking for something. This is a continual, repetitive coming before God, bringing our needs before him, and asking him to meet them.

The parable of the widow and the unjust judge gives us an image of this idea. In Luke 18, this widow continually brings her case before the judge asking and begging him to do something about it. This is the idea behind supplication. It is the earnest asking, the humble, over and over, persistence of bringing our needs to God to be met.

Examples in Scripture lean toward supplication being for others. Paul indicates that widows pray for others continually in 1 Timothy 5:5. Stephen made supplication for others even as they killed him in Acts 7:59-60, as did Jesus in Luke 23:34.

In our lives, I think we tend to make prayer too complicated. Jesus never made it complicated. As you search through the gospels looking at the life of Jesus, you’ll notice that the disciples only ever asked Jesus to teach them something one time. They ask him to teach them how to pray.

And what did Jesus do? He taught them to come to the Father like a child. When I look at my kids, I see that they trust me implicitly. I lift my youngest daughter up and pretend like I’m about to drop her. She never gets scared, she simply giggles. Why? Because she trusts me. She knows that I will not drop her. Openness, honesty and trust are hallmarks of my relationship with each of my kids.

As I think about my relationship with my Father, those should be the common characteristics of that relationship as well. The reason God answers prayer is because his children ask. When my kids ask for something, if it is in my power to give it, I will. My daughter asks for help with her homework. I give it. My son asks for me to watch him build something out of his toys. I watch. If my kids bring a need to me, I meet it.

The same is true with God. When we bring our needs before him, he meets them. It’s not always in the manner or in the timing that we expect or desire. But that’s because he knows better than we do.

I love what Richard Foster says about prayer in Celebration of Discipline:

We must never wait until we feel like praying before we pray for others. Prayer is like any other work; we may not feel like working, but once we’ve been at it for a bit, we begin to feel like working. We may not feel like practicing the piano, but once we play for a while, we feel like doing it. In the same way, our prayer muscles need to be limbered up a bit and once the blood-flow of intercession begins, we will find that we feel like praying.

The purpose of prayer? It’s complicated. But it’s so simple. And I think the best way to understand it is to simply go do it. So go ahead, spend some time in prayer. It’s very much worth the time and effort.

When you think of the purpose of prayer, what comes to mind? You can share your thoughts in the comment section below.