Jesus said, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8). Why then do we need to ask him? What’s the point of prayer? Well what kind of a relationship would it be if there was no communication? It is through prayer that we get to know Him. John Calvin (the 16th Century Reformist) summarised our need to pray like this: “Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promises, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word that they may declare that from him alone they hope and expect, both for themselves and for others, all good things.”

Cited in Through The Bible Through The Year by John Stott, p.201