Why Pray if God Already Knows What You Need?

Mat 6:8 Do not be like them: for your Father knows what things you have need before you ask him.

Why do we need to pray? Here Christ is telling us that prayer is not something we need to do to pass information. It isn't communication because God already knows what is in our hearts. What is it then?

Elsewhere Christ says that God created the Sabbath for man. Here, he is saying something similar about prayer. We don't pray because God needs praise. We don't pray because God needs to know how we feel. We pray because we need to pray. God doesn't need to hear what we want to say to him. We need to hear what we have to say to him.

Our prayers change us. Not just as a form of hynotism (which would be the same as repeating the babble of the pagans), but as a form of awareness and confession of our situation.

Christ is telling us that without prayer we don't really think about our situation. We don't really think about what we are doing. The purpose of prayer is to put our lives into perspective. When we are addressing God, we are forced to do that. We are forced to think about where is real in our lives and important. Prayer centers us.