There are varied answers to “What is prayer?”, depending on who has influenced you. Religious customs shape the prayers of most people.

But what if it is God himself who teaches a person about prayer? What if it is God who influenced us, instead of people?

1 Corinthians 2:10-12. But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

When God is the influencer, prayer is:

Listening and understanding, in place of solicitation.

Informal and constant. It is anytime, anywhere.

Prayer, his way, is:

Deciding to believe what God says, in place of discouragement and fear in dire circumstances.

It is learning who he is while engaging with him in daily life.

It is conversation, just as we converse with humans.

To not listen in conversation, especially in the presence of one who is all-knowing, is the stuff of fools.

Prayer is:

Realizing he knows your thoughts as soon as you think them. It is acknowledgement that he knows.

It is learning from him what to do in the thing you’ve acknowledged together.

As unlikely as it seems, and as difficult as it is to absorb, he wants to partner with each of us, to engage with us every hour of every day, and to help and empower us in the details of our lives.

When we do, he calls us friends.

John 15:15. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

1 Corinthians 2:10-12. But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. / For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. / We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

Exodus 33:11. Thus the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun would not leave the tent.

Isaiah 41:8. “But you, O Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham My friend—
Psalm 25:14. The LORD confides in those who fear Him, and reveals His covenant to them.

Proverbs 3:32. for the LORD detests the perverse, but He is a friend to the upright.