Packer part 2

Where does prayer come from? [Who thought it up?] Why do I often not pray at all, but I always feel that I should?

I think one answer that J. I. Packer might give is this:

“It is not too much to say that God made us to pray, that prayer is (not the easiest, but) the most natural activity in which we ever engage, and that prayer is the measure of us all in God’s sight.” (Emphasis added)

Prayer is at least communicating with God. And any genuine communication is two way. Thus when we long to pray we are seeking to fulfill that innate desire to receive and respond to revelation. The great catastrophe of the human fall into sin (see Genesis 3) is that it was a failure to "take God at his word." What he had promised to Adam and Eve was revelation: of truth, of beauty, of Himself. When we pray we say, "Lord, show me who you are and why that matters in my life right now." God's revelation to us in 2009 is through his Son and through his Word. So we must let the Bible hold our prayers by the hand, guiding us along, taking us to where we need to go, i.e., to the Triune God himself.