Why Jesus Prayed

I look first to Jesus for clues to the mysteries of faith, and regarding prayer he did not seem to share some of my biggest struggles. He never wondered whether God exists, whether anyone is truly listening. He never questioned the importance of prayer; indeed, he would flee a crowd of needy people in order to spend time alone with God, and sometimes devote all night to the task. The way Jesus talked, prayer made everything else possible.

Jesus seemed fully at ease with the Father and at unease with the world. For him, prayer provided a refreshing reminder of cosmic reality, the 'view from above' so often obscured on planet earth. Sometimes Jesus reminisced about that hidden realm: praying at supper the night of his arrest he recalled 'the glory I had with you before the world began'. Occasionally he felt such frustration with conditions on earth that he would let loose with a sigh: 'O unbelieving generation, how long shall I put up with you?' Jesus came from a place where God's command met no opposition; he knew exactly what he was asking when he instructed us to pray, 'your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'

Just as Jesus reminisced about his suspended identity, in a few rare instances the Father brought it tenderly to mind. 'You are my son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased,' God said as Jesus emerged from the water at his baptism. He heard a similar word of reinforcement at the Mount of Transfiguration - a close encounter that left his disciples face-down on the ground, terrified - and yet another at a melancholy moment shortly before his death. Each time, bystanders heard the voice and were startled by the phenomenon. Jesus, a refugee from heaven, felt comfort, not astonishment.

From his thirty-something years on earth, we have only these three glimpses of a supernatural boost. The rest of the time, for spiritual nourishment Jesus relied on the very thing we reply on: prayer. Jesus counted on prayer as a source of strength that equipped him to carry out a partnership with God the Father on earth. Jesus freely admitted his dependence: 'the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.'

In a telling comment Jesus also said, 'your Father knows what you need before you ask him.' He could not mean that prayer is unnecessary, for his own life belied that. He could only mean that we need not strive to convince God to care; the Father already cares, more than we can know. Prayer is not a matter of giving God new information. Instead of presenting requests as if God may not know them, it might be more appropriate to say 'God, you know I need this!'

And this is how Tim Stafford found a sort of resolution to his questions about prayer:

Here, I believe, is the key to understanding what is most personal in prayer. We do not pray to tell God what he does not know, nor to remind him of things he has forgotten. He already cares for the things we pray about ..... He has simply been waiting for us to care about them with him. When we pray, we stand by God and look with him towards people and problems. When we lift our eyes from them towards him, we do so with loving praise, just as we look towards our oldest and dearest friends and tell them, though they already it .... We speak to him as we speak to our most intimate friends - so that we can commune together in love.

- Prayer : Does it make any difference