Should you like to have a child who never spoke to you, never asked
you for anything? Of course not. And why? 'Because,' you would
say, 'one might as well have a dumb animal in one's family instead
of a child, if it is never to talk and ask questions and advice.'
Most true and reasonable, my friends. And as you would say
concerning your children, so says God of His. You feel that unless
you teach your children to ask you for all they want, even though
you know their necessities before they ask, and their ignorance in
asking, you will never call out their love and trust towards you.
You know that if you want really to have your child to please and
obey you, not as a mere tame animal, but as a willing, reasonable,
loving child, you must make him know that you are training him; and
you must teach him to come to you of his own accord to be trained,
to be taught his duty, and set right where he is wrong: and even so
does God with you. If you will only consider the way in which any
child must be educated by its human parents, then you will at once
see why prayer to our Heavenly Father is a necessary part of our
education in the kingdom of heaven.

Now the Lord's Prayer, just this sort of prayer, is man's cry to his
Heavenly Father to train him, to educate him, to take charge of him,
daily and hourly, body and soul and spirit. It is a prayer for
grace, for special grace; that is, for help, daily and hourly, in
each particular duty and circumstance; for help from God specially
suited to enable us to do our duty. And the whole of the prayer is
of this kind, and not, as some think, the latter part only.

It is too often said that the three first sentences are not prayers
for man, but rather praises to God. My friends, they cannot be one
without being the other. You cannot, I believe, praise God aright