Why do we have the word "prayer"? How is praying unique or different from talking?
This question bubbles up into my conscious thoughts any time I hear someone teach on the importance of prayer. Once you’re 15 minutes in to a monologue and th word “prayer” has been used 28 different times, it starts to lose meaning.
I find myself asking: what are we really talking about anymore? Isn’t prayer just talking?
I mean, I talk to God and I talk to my children. I talk to the cashier and I talk to my neighbor. Yes, I change my approach and formality based on the context of each situation. But do we really need to give talking to one person a special label?
Let’s take a quick dive into the verb “to pray” and see if we land on a clarifying idea.
Linguistic Roots
The English word prayer comes from the Latin “precari,” meaning to entreat, beg, or request earnestly.
So at its root, prayer isn’t casual speech — it implies intentional communication toward someone greater, with reverence and humility. It carries the sense of petition, thanksgiving, or adoration, not just dialogue.
By contrast, “talk” simply means to exchange words or ideas. Talking can be mutual, spontaneous, and horizontal (person-to-person), while prayer is considered vertical - directed “upward” toward the divine.
Relational Purpose
Prayer is conversation, but it’s conversation in a specific relationship. It assumes:
Faith that someone is listening beyond the visible world.
Reverence or acknowledgment of divine authority.
Openness to guidance, not just expression.
Talking can inform, persuade, or entertain.
Prayer aims to connect, surrender, and often align our hearts or will with God’s.
So while talking shares thoughts, prayer transforms them. It’s an act of trust, dependence, or worship.
Theological & Experiential
Many traditions describe prayer as two-way communication that goes beyond words:
In Christianity, prayer isn’t only speaking to God but also creating stillness to listen for God.
In Buddhism, prayer may express intention or cultivate compassion.
In Judaism, prayer Hebrew word “(tefillah”) comes from a root meaning to judge oneself, suggesting introspection and alignment with divine standards.
I’m fascinated by the Hebrew word: “To judge, to evaluate, to intercede”. Amazing.
This is going to be a tangent, but bear with me.
I’m the Old Testament stories and era, the people had no direct communication or expectation of relationship with God. They functioned through intermediaries called priests.
So their version of prayer was certainly more of a distant engagement by which they would examine themselves in the light of the memorized Torah, or Law of God.
Without Jesus, prayer looks different. It’s really not communing as much as it is reflecting, meditating, declaring, and self-analyzing.
In modern day practice, post-resurrection, prayer takes on more personal aspects. It’s not only reflection, meditation, and petition — it’s communion.
It blends expression, reflection, and relationship into one act.
Perhaps the most puzzling or nuanced issue with praying is what I call the constant “adjusting" or “adapting” of posture from the individual.
Some prayers are intimate, like a friend confiding in a friend. Some prayers are familial, like a child seeking comfort from a dad. Some prayers are desperate, like a cry for help in an emergency. Some prayers are formal, like a lawyer requesting a stay of execution from a judge. Some prayers are worshipful, like a high priest bowing before the Presence of God around the ark of the covenant.
Each and all of these prayer types are appropriate types of a believer’s prayer.
The question that has been posed to me which I will in turn pose to you is:
Do you get stuck relating to God in one or two of these ways, or do you require yourself to remain sensitive to His Spirit and adapt to the appropriate expression of prayer that is called for in the moment?
That is the great and wonderful question before us.
We have this unfashionable opportunity to commune with the Lord over all Lords and the King over all Kings, an we can petite the Father through Him.
It is a great and beautiful mystery for us to unfold day after day after day.