Calvin on Prayer

"Believers do not pray with the view of informing God about things unknown to him, or of exciting him to do his duty, or of urging him as though he were reluctant. On the contrary, they pray in order that they may arouse themselves to seek him, that they may exercise their faith in meditating on his promise, that they may relieve themselves from their anxieties by pouring them into his bosom; in a word, that they may declare that from him alone they hope and expect, both from themselves and for others, all good things."

John Calvin
(as found in Christian Counter Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, by John Stott)