This is great article about prayer from Bill Gillham of Lifetime Guarantee Ministries. Here is an excerpt from the article:
“God ordained prayer to enable us to develop a personal, intimate, trusting relationship with our Spiritual Dad—to bond with Him. How do we do that? By spending a lot of time doing things together and conversing. That’s right—conversing. This is not to say that we’re to fill the air with chatter or tell God the latest joke. After all, He already knows the punch line. it doesn’t mean that we should begin the day with our laundry list. Jesus told us that He already knows our needs and that He’s turned off by our greeds.”