importance of prayer

i started reading colossians recently for my devotional. i do quiet time with duranno (part of ounri (my church's mother church)) and it got to me. in the book Colossians Paul writes letter about colossians and he tells them that he prays for them. he never knew them he just knew the guy who went there and built the church there.
This got me really thinking. ever since jama, where i heard from Dr. Kanayama, when he answered a question "how do you know when God's telling you something?" he answered "if we pray to him a lot he talks to us and we know", just like if Alice called me i'd be like "hey alice" because i'd recognize her voice" we need to beable to recognize God's voice and really just believe in him. and to do all that we need to pray, and we really need to just pray about everything.
I always start out praying these days praying about myself and then friends and then church and then the world. there is so many things that we need to pray about and i really am ashamed about myself that i tend to not pray much.
These days i want to change that, i try to pray more and i try to reach out to God, because if we're reaching out to people first, then all we're doing is socializing. we're saying that we're evangelizing but we really aren't we are fufilling our selfish need of socialization. We need to reach out to God and really have a relationship with him. without that we are nothing.
God wants us to reach out to him and talk to him. God wants us to have a relationship with him. just like i call alice and talk to her we need to do that to God and really just get to know him and he will tell you what to do and what his will is.
i'll end with a quote i heard from someone who came back from haiti.
a pastor that's living in haiti was asked a question "why do you want to serve God in such a dangerous place as haiti?" and he answered "there's no safer place then God's will."
God has plan for all of us and if we have relationship with Him. everything will unfold