Is Prayer Important?

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I have trouble praying sometimes. One of the big issues I've realized that I (and, I suspect, most people) struggle with sometimes is the desire to do something palpable, something concrete and thoroughly of-this-world and physical (such as reducing how much I drive or recycling more). Praying seems so... silly, almost, and so it gets pushed down my to-do list until it just doesn't happen.

It required (and requires) a huge shift in my worldview to combat such a view. Praying is something that God calls us to do (Matthew 6:5-8, Philippians 4:6, 1 Thessalonians 5:17), so He must think it's important. I think prayer attunes us to the true reality of this life and its spiritual aspects--which are so easy to forget or ignore due to our physical existence here on earth. 

Reality is spiritual. God and what happens in the spiritual world are more important than what happens here in the physical world: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). It may seem as if our physical actions are and should be the most important, but that just isn't true. We are fighting against "spiritual forces", and the only way to defeat them is through prayer and the grace of God.