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Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
We don't pray to tell God anything he doesn't already know. We don't pray to persuade him to act against what would be his normal inclination. We pray instead as people praying to a Father who delights to give us the Kingdom (see Luke 12:32). If Jesus himself tells us to persist like the widow against the unjust judge it is not a change in God that is the actual result. Rather prayer changes us first. The miraculous results in the world, though we should expect them, must be secondary in the mind of God or else he would not hold back until we ask.
Our Father who art in heaven
To pray well we must know who we are. We must begin with a sense of our identity as children of our heavenly Father. Only if his name is hallowed in our hearts do we have the confidence he wants us to have. When we cry out to God as Father we are able to desire what he desires and to ask in faith for the things he wants us to ask.
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
The word that goes forth from the mouth of God will not return to him void. It is given to us through the Jesus who is the will of the Father. As the prayer we know as the Our Father this word has its effect in our hearts and in the world. It achieves the end for which it was sent.
We often underestimate the power of the Our Father. This is perhaps because we've gotten used to rushing through it, to simply babbling like the pagans. But there is immense power when we pray it attentively and with perseverance. The Father who gives good gifts to his children (see Matthew 7:11) is waiting to answer us.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
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