The Necessity of Prayer

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said:
“In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men.
And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ ” (Luke 18:1-4)

“If we don’t pray according to the needs of the heart, we repress our deepest longings. Our prayers may not be rational, and we may be aware of that, but if we repress our needs, then those unsaid prayers will fester.” (Madeline L’Engle from Two-Part Invention)