“But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?” I answer, “What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need—the need of Himself?”
George MacDonald (1824-1905), The Word of Jesus on Prayer, in Unspoken Sermons, Second Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1886, p. 66-6