Neal A. Maxwell wrote:
One can pray and yet not really pray. Prayers can be routinized and made very superficial. When this happens, there is very little communication and very little growth. Yet, given the times in which we live, improving our prayers should be one of our deepest desires if we are genuinely serious about growing spiritually.
Prayer may not be a hard doctrine, but it can be a very deep and soul-satisfying experience. It is the means by which we can draw close to our Heavenly Father and understand better His deep doctrines.
Certainly, in hard times, prayer is no less needed. It is sobering to remember that we have been told that in the final days of this dispensation the righteous will pray almost unceasingly for the Lord to hasten His coming—so bad will be the circumstances on the earth. However, even apart from such stressful circumstances, praying is a part of that triad of things we must do: serving, studying, and praying in order to find joy and happiness and to grow closer to the Lord.
Even though mortals have been praying for centuries, prayer is not something we can clinically diagnose and dissect, giving ready answers for every question about every dimension of this great process.
Prayer is clearly a commandment, and we are even asked to urge others in the Church to pray. (Moses 5:8, 16; Doctrine and Covenants 20:47.) It is likewise clear that there are different types of prayer—prayers of adoration, of appreciation, of confession, and of petition. Since in our humanness we seem to utter many more of the latter than of any other kind, it is out of these prayers that some of the most frequent questions and concerns seem to arise. ~Neal A. Maxwell, All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1980). 91-92 (continued)
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