For the people of God, prayer is a first response, a last resort, and every effort in between. Like scaffolding to an unfinished building, prayer helps us grasp what is typically beyond human reach. God is beyond us (Is. 55: 8, 9), but we are never beyond His love for us (Rom. 8: 38, 39). We have in Him a Father who sees, hears, cares and searches for us. He calls us into prayer—to place us before Him and to bring Himself to us.