> So why doesn't God just jump in and always grant every request that you might otherwise have asked for if he hadn't granted it and to which he would have decided to grant the request had you asked for it?
>
> Beats me.

Possibly because the experience of asking for something, and then receiving it, is an essential part of the way we can tangibly experience God. Granted, it's still a matter of faith-- I can't "prove" that it was God who gave me a job a week after I prayed about it, but if I believe it was, then it's a wonderful moment of reaffirmation that God really does hear me and cares about my life. If God simply handed us everything, without our going to him first and asking for some things, we would quickly forget that it was God who gave them to us.

For me, prayer is not about trying to get something I want, but it's about reminding myself that there's someone who loves me and holds my life in his hands (heh, like an Allstate commercial except not). Given these two beliefs, it would be silly not to go to that person and ask for something that I want. Besides, it usually has a wonderful effect on my attitude.

As for telling God I love him-- God may be omniscient, but I am not. *I* need to tell him I love him, because that's what I do when I love people. If I simply calculate, "God is omniscient, therefore he knows I love him, therefore I don't need to tell him," that feels like a very cold and minimum-effort-expended relationship. I need to relate to God the way I do to people, because that's the only way I know how to relate to someone, and if I don't, I become detached and can easily forget about him entirely.

None of this really explains any better why prayer has to happen from God's point of view, but maybe it doesn't need to. Maybe prayer is chiefly constructed for our benefit, not God's.

Lirelyn