Two of the most detrimental things a Christian can do is either, 1) develop a why-bother attitude about prayer, thinking God will just do whatever He wants anyway, or 2) treat God as some kind of Genie in a bottle to be approached only when we want something from Him.

Now it is true that for whatever the exact reason may be, (His ways are not our ways!) God has decided from before the creation of the world that the course history was going to take was going to be a direct result of our prayers. That's the truth of the matter. God considers each and every request we make and decides yes or no based on our ultimate good and the ultimate good of others. There's an old quote that goes, "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." So, we must never cease to pray, for if we do, God will cease to work in our lives.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be in such a precarious position of floating adrift. But when we pray, we must do so with reverence, examining our hearts for selfish motives and unrepentant sin. James 4:2b-3 says, "You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." ...