Jesus tells us today not to babble endless prayers as if somehow by so doing we can bring God round to our way of thinking. Some religious groups would keep calling their god by all his different names, hoping that by hitting on the right one he would listen. God knows our needs before we ask. Why then do we need to pray at all? The praying is not for God's sake but for our own. It is important for us to become deeply aware of our needs and of our basic helplessness and total dependence on God. We also need to learn just what God wants of us so that we can do what he wants. Our prayer, then, is to ask him to help us do what he wants. And that is what the Lord's Prayer is about. It is a way of praying; it is a list of the things we need to pray about. And it is less our telling God what we want him to do than making ourselves aware of the ways by which we can become more united with him. It is a very challenging and, in a way, a very dangerous and daring prayer to make. Prayer is not a question of us manipulating God to make him do what we want done but rather of finding out what God wants and bringing our own desires into total harmony with his. It is not a question of putting aside our will and submitting reluctantly to his will. It is a question of bringing the two wills together. Then I find I am doing what I want because I want what God wants. That is freedom, that is peace, that is happiness.