Why Pray?

If God already knows a person's mind, why should he or she pray?  While this question by no means poses a philosophical problem for Christianity, for Christians, it is a question that might arise from time to time.  There is no internal contradiction in the answer to this inquiry, and the answer can be refreshing in the context of a personal commitment to Christianity, as opposed to only in the context of exploring philosophical matters.  Prayer's primary function is to strengthen or celebrate a restored relationship between humans and God [1].  When this fact is recognized, the nature of prayer becomes quite evident: its main benefits have nothing to do with whether or not God sees into human minds.

Just as prayer is not about manipulating God into a certain reaction or demanding supernatural demonstrations from him, prayer is not about giving information about oneself to God that he would otherwise be incapable of knowing.  Should one share one's thoughts with God anyway?  Since prayer is ultimately about emphasizing a relationship with God, as well as developing or living out one's moral character, the fact that one party already knows the other's mind does not interfere with the objective of prayer; in fact, this makes the relational intimacy deeper, albeit mostly on one side.

Friends might revisit things they have already discussed before, perhaps by retelling an old story that is familiar to both parties.  I have never heard of a person questioning if someone should engage in any human conversation at all unless there is something entirely unknown to one party or the other that needs to be discussed.  Yet some might trivialize the notion of prayer on such grounds.  If people can speak about familiar, previously disclosed matters with other people, then they can certainly do the same in their relationships with God.

There is great benefit that can be found in prayer despite the fact that God knows the minds of each individual beforehand (Psalm 139:2).  Solidifying and enjoying intimacy with God are at the foundation of sincere prayer, and anything more is only a favorable addition.  We should not pray for the sake of merely aiming to coax God into altering some life circumstance, as if he is a being that humans can manipulate; we have no basis for expecting divine intervention in our lives simply because we pray.  However, we may find that life circumstances do change after periods of intense prayer.  Is this necessarily because of direct activity on the part of God?  No, but prayer is beneficial regardless of outcomes.