The promise of an answer

What happens when you pray? What should you expect? The foundation of our prayers is laid in God himself, in his faithful love, his gracious plan, and his precious word. The expression of our prayers, springing from that foundation, is in a calling upon the Lord and praying to him, an expectant looking. Then the expectation of our prayers is that, framed by God and his plan and his promises, he will respond readily and richly, and so bless his people, not because of any good thing in them, but because of his own goodness toward them.