Understanding The Nature of Prayer

I remember a story that R. A. Torrey told, growing out of a series of meetings he had held in Melbourne, Australia. He had been speaking on prayer. One day just before a noon meeting a note was placed in his hand. It read: 

Dear Mr. Torrey, I am in great perplexity. I have been praying for a long time for something that I am confident is according to God’s will, but I do not get it. I have been a member of the Presbyterian church for thirty years, and have tried to be a consistent one all that time. I have been superintendent in the Sunday school for twenty-five years, and an elder in the church for twenty years; and yet God does not answer my prayer and I cannot understand it. Can you explain it to me? 

Torrey replied that he could explain it quite easily. He said, “This man thinks that because he has been a consistent church member for thirty years, a faithful Sunday school superintendent for twenty-five years, and an elder in the church for twenty years, that God is under obligation to answer his prayer. He is really praying in his own name, and God will not hear our prayers when we approach him in that way. 

We must, if we would have God answer our prayers, give up any thought that we have any claims upon God. There is not one of us who deserves anything from God.” At the close of the meeting a man came to Torrey, identified himself as the one who had written the note, and said that Torrey had hit the nail squarely on the head. He then confessed his mistake.