Yet our Lord never ridicules or dismisses such people. In short, we learn to pray on behalf of those concerns of ours that are first concerns of God's. Yes, there is the prayer of adoration, the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of confession. At the same time, prayer is overwhelmingly intercession. We are asking God for forgiveness, for daily necessities, for protection against trials too severe for us to withstand, for the spread of his effectual rule among men and women.
Prayer is intercession, finally.
In the second place we must admit that God commands us to pray. This lattermost point is important. Because God insists that we pray we must never think that our praying makes no difference. We have not been created mere spectators of God's governance of the world, as if we were spectators at a play, merely watching the real actors on the stage. To be sure, God alone is sovereign.