We pray for three reasons: It glorifies God, it changes us, and it shapes history.

Prayer glorifies God.  All the great prayers of the Bible, whether it be Daniel, Solomon, Nehemiah, Hezekiah, the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, or the High Priestly prayer of John 17, appeal to God’s glory, for the sake of His Name and Kingdom. In our sin we habitually constrict our world to our petty and self-absorbed horizons. We tend to evaluate all relationships in terms of their impact on us; our daydreams dwell on my own life and circumstances; our goals and hopes invariably circle around our own place in the universe. But God-centered prayer re-centers our world and realigns our magnetic north. True prayer kindles our delight in Him, feasts on the abundance of His house, drinks from His river of delight.

Prayer changes us. Prayer does not bend God’s will to ours; it bends our will to His. First, God-centered prayer brings us to the posture of spiritual prostration and humility before God; it is the expression of God-dependence. Second, it changes us by building our faith. Prayer feeds on the promises of the Bible. Third, it changes us by cleansing our souls. In God-centered prayer, God’s truth cleanses our minds, God’s holiness cleanses our consciences, God’s beauty cleanses our imagination, God’s love cleanses our hearts.

Prayer changes history. We see this in Daniel 9, where Daniel’s prayer of confession changes history, paving the way for the return of the exiles from captivity. Daniel 9:2 In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.  Daniel’s response to Scripture reveals his practical and theological sensitivity to the biblical teaching on divine sovereignty and human responsibility. He knew what God had foreordained through his study of Jeremiah. Yet he did not say:  “Well, if God is going to restore Israel anyway, there is no need for me to work or pray for restoration.” Instead, Daniel devoted himself to prayer. As Sinclair Ferguson has noted on this text, “God’s sovereign purposes are never revealed in Scripture as excuses for our personal indolence but as incentives for action. The fact that all authority in heaven and earth had been given to Jesus did not mean that His disciples could set back and relax. To the contrary, it obligated them to go throughout the world with the gospel.”