Jesus said, 'Ask and you will receive. Knock and the door will be open on to you.' This doesn't mean he's like the genie of the lamp and that if you rub the lamp in the right way or believe hard enough you will get whatever you ask for. We don't of course get whatever we ask for. The standard explanation is that is we only get what's good for us. That makes more sense and is backed up in scripture but our 'down to earth' experience shows us bad things regularly happen to good people even those who have faith and pray.

I get frustrated when I hear that people lost their faith because a loved one died or something terrible happened to them. Had they never noticed these things happening to other people? Recently a Christian on Wattpad seemed to credit God with steering a hurricane around US cities but that same week hundreds died in an Italian earthquake. Did one country get its prayers right while the other wasn't doing it properly? Was it only bad or faithless people who died? It's right to give thanks for good things that happen in our life but the sun shines on the just and the unjust. I have faith in a purpose and that things will ultimately work out but we live in an imperfect, out of kilter world and for the moment bad things keep happening to good people, even the ones who have faith and pray.

For me the point of prayer isn't coming to God with a shopping list in the hope that he will reorder the universe to suit us. It's submitting ourselves to his will. God doesn't need our shopping list he knows what is good for us better than we do.

The prayer Jesus taught us, the Lord's Prayer, isn't a list of demands. We are taught to ask for 'our daily bread' the things we need to get by but more to the point we ask to be forgiven, 'as we forgive others' and to pray, Thy will be done, Thy Kingdom come'. We are taught to seek God's will rather than our own. I prayed to God at the lowest point of my life when I was desperate and could see no way through my situation. 'Thy will be done" was the only prayer I could pray.

I think the Lord's Prayer is a woefully under rated resource. We are all taught to recite it but it seems strange that the particular form of words we are given and that we too often babble through unthinking comes after an injunction from Jesus not to babble like pagans who think that they will be heard for their many words.

To me the Lord's Prayer should be a pattern and template for our prayers not a set of words to be gabbled like some form of incantation. We should contemplate and dwell on what we have been taught rather than dash it off as we are prone to.

The very first words 'Our Father' remind us we are joining our prayers with other Believers. We are joined together by a common loving Father, called to remember what binds us rather than our differences. The word 'father' indicates we can have an intimate relationship and enter his presence with trust. He is 'in Heaven'. We should come with a sense of longing for a better time and place, for a perfection that can be attained through God alone. We 'hallow' his name coming into his presence with reverence and a sense of awe at the immensity of God.

The 'Kingdom' we pray for is a world where everything will be under his influence, a world where everything is in tune with his will and purpose. In praying for this to happen we should in effect be offering ourselves up to make it happen. God doesn't regularly break into and change our world he exercises his influence through us. This is beautifully expressed in the words of Teresa of Ávila. "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours."

We are taught to ask for 'our daily bread' the things we need to sustain us. There is no need for a shopping list, God knows our needs better than we do, he doesn't forget or need reminding. We ask for our sins to be forgiven, 'as we forgive others'. We have all sinned. Our sins are forgiven but sensible of our own faults we need to let go of the grievances we have against others. We ask not to be tempted or drawn into evil and finish by reminding ourselves of God's power and glory.

The prayer Jesus taught teaches us everything we need to know about prayer in my view. It is a humbling of ourselves before God and opening ourselves to his purpose.

Most churches have a form of 'intercession' or 'asking' prayer. Typically we will pray for people who have died or are in need of healing. My view of what we do in such prayer is that we hold the person or situation prayed for in God's presence. We offer ourselves as channels of his love and influence.

I am conscious, while I have not experienced it, that others talk of the healing power of prayer. I am loath to down play this and would ascribe it to the power of love and hope. Scientific theories like 'chaos' theory teach us the smallest changes in the universe can have profound effects. Prayer can I think make a difference as a vehicle for positive energy but there is little point in praying for what we are not prepared to work for.

Christ did indeed say, "ask and you will receive, knock and the door will be opened onto you" but I believe he was talking about spiritual gifts. The role and purpose of prayer isn't to ask for things it's to open ourselves to God's purpose.

Matthew 6
5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 "This, then, is how you should pray:

"'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,[a]
but deliver us from the evil one.[b