Our notion of God is central not only to prayer but to the entirety of our Christian life. Since we are made to God's image and likeness we come to our own sense of identity by knowing something of the mystery of God. God is love. St. Paul knew that and speaks about the peace that follows from surrendering ourselves to God's loving design. Prayer also leads to on-going conversion for in that dialogue with God we come to realize that there is and will always be certain unredeemed areas of our minds and hearts.
Authentic prayer leads to a self-forgetting and a fostering of a new center of consciousness.
This is what happened to Jeremiah. He was absorbed by his own work until the Lord called him to prophecy. There are few arts more difficult than that of listening. So many distractions and pre-occupations race through our minds and hearts that is it amazing that we hear as much as we do. Through the action of God we do sometimes hear the voice of God breaking into our lives through scriptures, a chance acquaintance, the community of faith to which we belong, the events of daily life.