I have so many questions about prayer.
If God already knows what we need then why does he ask us to pray? (He knows better than we know!)
Do I have to say the right words for him to answer? (I don't know what those words are!)
Do I have to pray with a pure heart for him to pay attention? (I am always in trouble if that is true!)
Those are the philosophical questions...the questions I sometimes ask to cover up my real heart questions. The questions that keep me from praying sometimes:
Does he want to hear what I have to say?
Why doesn't he come through for me when I need him to?!
Does he pay attention to me at all?
Is he even there?
Prayer is often a mystery to us, but it becomes less of a mystery when we pause to look into Jesus praying. There are preciously few times when we get to listen in on what he says, but when we do they are packed with meaning. Sometimes, he prays a lot of words (see John 17) and sometimes he says very little ("Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do").
But every time he prays we can learn from the model Pray-er. We don't learn "12 steps to a better praying you" or techniques to twist God's arm into giving us what we want. What we learn from the model Pray-er is that prayer is the overflow of a relationship, with all a relationship's ups and downs and imprecise messiness.
Prayer is the sign of a relationship God is inviting us into, not the work that creates it.