Prayer is an essential spiritual discipline, as vital to our spiritual health and Christian endeavors, as proper nutrition is to the physical body. Without it sooner or later the spiritual health breaks down. Prayerlessness is powerlessness.

Now prayer is not some kind of magic, as though a power in itself. Prayer is only powerful when we lift up to God holy hands. In that case, as James says, the prayers of a righteous man accomplish much. In essence prayer comes down simply to the habit of worshipful petition that pleases God since it exhibits a spirit of humility and dependence that honors Him. For those reasons we ought to study and practice it.