He has already intended to give me: why should I pray at all?'

The only answer is, 'Pray, because God is your Father, and you His
child.' The only answer; but the most complete answer. I will
engage to say, that if anyone here is ever troubled with doubts
about prayer, those two simple words, 'Our Father,' if he can once
really believe them in their full richness and depth, will make the
doubts vanish in a moment, and prayer seem the most natural and
reasonable of all acts. It is because we are God's children, not
merely His creatures, that He will have us pray. Because He is
educating us to know Him; to know Him not merely to be an Almighty
Power, but a living, loving Person; not merely an irresistible Fate,
but a Father who delights in the love of His children, who wishes to
shape them into His own likeness, and make them fellow-workers with
Him; therefore it is that He will have us pray. Doubtless he
_could_ have given us everything without our asking; for He _does_
already give us almost everything without our asking. But He wishes
to educate us as His children; to make us trust in Him; to make us
love Him; to make us work for Him of our own free wills, in the
great battle which He is carrying on against evil; and that He can
only do by teaching us to pray to Him. I say it reverently, but
firmly. As far as we can see, God cannot educate us to know Him,
The living, willing, loving Father, unless He teaches us to open our
hearts to Him, and to ask Him freely for what we want, just
_because_ He knows what we want already.

If I have not made this plain enough to any of you, my friends, let
me go back to the simple, practical explanation of it which God
Himself has given us in those two words--father and child.