What is Prayer?

Prayer is not a half-hearted ritual recitation of words; it is an outpouring of the heart.


First and foremost, prayer is an expression of our relationship with God.

What is that relationship?

God is our Father and we are His children. As such we are dependent on Him. Therefore, it is a relationship of dependency.

We are deluding ourselves if we think we are making it on our own, that God is not watching, not running the show. But if we choose to act that way, sometimes God lets us.

God gave us free will, and He generally keeps out of our lives until we acknowledge the relationship. We learn this from the opening sentences of the Bible:

This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, on the day the Lord God made earth and heaven. All the plants of the field were at this time in the ground and all the vegetation of the field had not yet sprouted for the Lord God had not brought rain upon the earth as there was no human being to work the soil. [Genesis 2:4-5]

Rashi, the famed 11th century Biblical commentator, explains that God had not brought rain because He wanted the first human being to pray for it. Indeed, when Adam recognized the need for rain in the world, he prayed for it.

This is the first hint that the basic relationship between humanity and God is expressed through prayer.

When Adam prays, he acknowledges that he has a relationship with God, he is dependent on God, and he must ask God for what he needs. As soon as Adam prays, God begins to relate to him directly and, of course, answers his prayer. Indeed, it rains and all the vegetation begins to sprout.

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