There was a time when prayer felt like something I needed to make myself do.

I knew Christians were supposed to pray, so I prayed. Sometimes I needed something from God. Sometimes something was wrong. Other times I prayed because I knew it was the right spiritual thing to do. But prayer could still feel like a task to complete rather than a natural part of how I lived.

That has changed over time.

It wasn’t one decision or one moment that suddenly transformed everything. As I spent more time in God’s Word, grew in my understanding of Him, walked through circumstances that required me to trust Him, and simply continued bringing more of my life before Him, prayer gradually became different.

I started talking to God about more things.

My work, my decisions, my family, ministry, things I was creating and things I was worried about. I talked to him about people I loved, questions I couldn’t answer, things I wanted, and things I didn’t understand.

Sometimes I needed direction while other times I needed comfort or correction. Often times there was no crisis at all. I simply wanted to talk to Him.

Somewhere along the way, prayer became less like something I had to remember to do and more like somewhere I naturally knew to go.  And when I think about what prayer has become in my life, I think about water.

The human body contains a tremendous amount of water, yet having water within us does not eliminate our need to continually take in more. Our bodies are constantly using and losing water through the normal processes required to keep us alive. We drink because our bodies were designed with an ongoing need for it.

Sometimes we drink because we are intensely thirsty. Other times we drink because we know we need to. Sometimes we grab water without giving it much thought because drinking it has simply become part of our normal routine.

But we keep returning to it.

I think prayer can become something like that in the life of a believer.

This is only an illustration.  Scripture does not define prayer itself as water, but it helps me understand the ongoing dependence Paul describes when he says, “Pray without ceasing.”

There will be moments when you pray because you are spiritually thirsty. Life has drained you, something has frightened you, your heart is broken, or you desperately need God to intervene.

There will be other days when nothing dramatic is happening. You pray because you have learned that you need God even when life is going well.

And then there will be days when prayer requires discipline. You may not feel particularly spiritual. You may be distracted. You may not feel an urgent need. But maturity teaches us not to wait until we are desperate before recognizing our dependence upon God.

We keep coming back.

One of the great temptations of life is self-sufficiency. We become experienced. We learn. We build routines. We develop skills. We solve problems. We become capable in areas where we were once unsure of ourselves.

Those things can be good. But capability can quietly convince us that we have become our own source.

We haven’t.

Jesus told His disciples in John 15:5, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” Then He said something that confronts every illusion of spiritual self-sufficiency: “for without me ye can do nothing.”

A branch was never designed to become independent of the vine as it matured. Its fruitfulness depended upon abiding.

Our spiritual maturity works much the same way. Growing in God does not mean eventually needing Him less. As we mature, we begin recognizing more clearly how much we have always needed Him.

We need His wisdom because our own perspective is limited. We need His truth because our feelings can mislead us. We need His strength because ours eventually reaches its limit. We need His correction because we can be sincerely wrong. We need His peace because circumstances cannot always provide it. We need His power because there are things in this life we simply cannot do ourselves.

And we need His presence even when we are not asking Him to do anything.

Prayer continually brings us back into that posture of dependence.

It says, “God, I need You involved in my life.”

Not because God is unaware of what is happening when we do not pray, and not because His presence disappears every time our prayer routine becomes inconsistent. For those who belong to Christ, the Holy Spirit does not repeatedly leave and return according to the quality of our devotional life.

But we can begin living as though we are on our own.

We can make decisions without seeking God’s wisdom. We can allow emotions to govern us without bringing them underneath His truth. We can carry burdens He invites us to give Him. We can become so occupied with solving our lives that we stop acknowledging the One who gave us life in the first place.

Prayer interrupts that independence.

It reminds us:

I have a Father.

I have somewhere to take this.

I do not have to know everything.

I do not have to carry everything.

I am not limited to what I can accomplish by myself.

Over these seven days, we have seen prayer in many forms. We have learned that because of Jesus, we have access to God. We have discovered that prayer is more than asking, that we can bring God our real emotions and desires, that prayer can strengthen us when circumstances do not change, that it teaches us to trust when answers are unclear, and that prayer has power because the God who hears us is powerful.

Now the invitation is simply to keep going.

You do not need to leave this devotional with a perfect prayer routine. You do not need to decide that from now on you will pray for an hour every morning. You do not need to manufacture an emotional experience every time you talk to God.

Just keep coming back.

Talk to Him in the morning.

Bring Him the decision in the afternoon.

Thank Him when something good happens.

Call on Him when something goes wrong.

Ask for wisdom before you respond.

Confess when you know you were wrong.

Pray for the person who comes to mind.

Bring Him the thing you cannot fix.

Sit with Him when you have nothing to ask for.

And when you realize that you have gone another stretch of life trying to do everything yourself, come back again.

There is no shame in needing God.

You were created to need Him.

Prayer is not evidence that you are incapable of managing life. It is recognition that you were never meant to live independently of the One who gave you life.

So keep praying.

Keep asking.

Keep listening.

Keep surrendering.

Keep trusting.

Keep returning.

Not simply because Christians are supposed to pray, but because you have discovered what an extraordinary thing it is to have somewhere to go.

You have access to God.

And you can keep coming back.