This prayer, commonly known as the Lord's Prayer, illustrates all the principles that Martin Luther taught in the early years of what is now known as "protestantism":
"Prayer is a turning point in which the suffering laid upon us ceases to be a heavy cross and becomes easy to bear, because in prayer God himself comes to man and helps him to live and act.
- "Martin Luther onVocation"
by Gustaf Wingren, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2004
And also from his Small Catechism, Luther writes:
Prayer is an act of worship wherein we bring our petitions to God
We should be moved to pray by God's command and promise, our own and our neighbor's need, and gratitude for blessings received.
Of course, there have been volumes written about prayer. Some of what has been written is truth, while some is conjecture. But what we do know is that God wants us to come to Him in prayer, just as He has taught us in the Lord's Prayer. He wants us to come to Him to glorify His name, to ask for that which we cannot do on our own, and to protect us from temptation by the Evil One.
It is only because of this powerful gift from God that we can come before Him and receive, by the Holy Spirit, what He wants us to know of His preferred future for us. In our "Visioning" process, we rely on prayer frequently for discernment, forgiveness, and direction - to His glory!