The main teaching here is that we should expect prayer to proceed in the manner of a relationship between persons. Of course it will be in the manner of such relationships at their best, but the general character of requesting will remain. In fact, the contrary assumption possibly causes more people to “drop out” of praying than anything else. Praying is mistakenly thought to be like plunking your money into a soft drink machine or like dropping a bomb. You do a simple act one time, and then mechanism takes over to produce the inevitable result.
