by Carolyn Tytler

Created on: January 08, 2010   Last Updated: January 18, 2010

If you had a close friend to whom you rarely spoke, would your relationship last very long? Of course not. Friendship depends on communication. Friends spend time together,  discuss important issues, learn about each other, listen to each other, and are anxious to make each other happy.

God, our Heavenly Father, should also be our Best Friend. He created us, He has a plan for our lives and He is anxious to help us fulfill that plan and spend eternity with Him in Heaven. In order to achieve that goal, we must maintain a close relationship with Him. How can we do that? As with human friends, we foster that relationship through  communication.  Prayer is a term used to express respectful communication with the Almighty.

There are many more reasons for praying besides hoping to get to Heaven and asking God for  favors. Here are a few. Upon reflection, each of us could come up with more which perhaps would be applicable to our own particular circumstances.

* Christians pray to offer adoration to God. Prayer helps us realize our true position in relation to the Divine.  God is the Creator, we are the creatures. We are dependent on Him for our very life. We owe God praise, adoration, and glory. Prayer helps us put our relationship to God in the proper perspective.  It keeps us humble.

* Christians are followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Jesus prayed and He is our example. The Bible relates that He prayed on many occasions and in many places, in the desert, in the temple, in the synagogue, at meals, and with His friends.  He knew the importance of  staying in close communication with the Father.  "Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God."  Luke 6:12

If prayer was so vital in the life of Jesus, how much more so should it be for us?

* Christians pray because they know prayer is effective. It changes things. Jesus promised: "If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it."  John 14:14

Christians believe that the Bible is word of God. Since God is all-good, He cannot lie.  There is an adage that advises us to be careful what we pray for, because we may get it!

There are many occasions when we honestly don't know what to pray for. We just cannot see what the best resolution for a particular problem might be. Those are the times when we trust in the wisdom of a God who loves us, and all of His

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