Much of what passes for prayer today is anything but prayer. Instead, it is an attempt by us to counsel God on what He ought to do or to persuade God to do what we want Him to. Far from being prayer, it actually borders on blasphemy, since it is an arrogant assumption on our part that we know better than God does and that our will is superior to God's will.

The following is my definition of prayer, which has been painstakingly arrived at over years of serious study and a lifetime of practice, in which I've mistakenly prayed amiss a multitude of times. Prayer is partnering with God in the carrying out of His plans and purposes in this world and in the fulfilling of His good, acceptable, and perfect will in our own lives, as well as in the  lives of others. This means that true prayer must be initiated by God, since we cannot pray according to His will and with faith or confidence until He has revealed His will to us (1 John 5:14). Therefore, the most important part of prayer is never us talking to God, but always God talking to us. In fact, until God talks to us, we don't know what to pray to Him.

Now that the end of all things has come upon us, we must, as the Apostle Peter admonished us, devote ourselves to lives of serious prayer (1 Peter 4:7). To do so, we must first learn how to pray, the importance of which is made clear by the fact that the only thing the disciples ever asked Christ to teach them how to do was how to pray (Luke 11:1). Have you ever asked Christ to teach you how to pray? If not, why don't you enroll in Christ's school of prayer today, for learning how to pray will prove to be of paramount importance to you in these perilous times of the last days.