"Everyone prays- kind of. It's our most human action. At the deep centre of our lives, we are connected somehow or other with God. That deep center often gets buries under the everyday debris of routine and distraction and chatter, while we shuffle about out of touch and unaware of our true selves. Then a sudden jolt opens a crevasse, exposing for a moment our bedrock self: spontaneously we pray. We're made by and for the voice of God- listening to and answering that voice is our most characteristic act. We are most ourselves when we pray.
The jolt comes variously- a stab of pain, a rush of beauty, an encore of joy; we exclaim, "God!" The cry can be complaint or curse or praise, no matter, it's prayer. When that deep, deep centre of our lives is exposed- our core humanity, which biblical writers so vigoriously designate as "heart"- we unthinkingly revert to our first language: we pray.
For some that's the end of it, brief and random exclamations scattered haphazardly across a lifetime. But others of us, not content to be our true selves incidently, hunt for ways to cultivate fluency. More often than not, the hunt turns up its quarry in the psalms."

Eugene H. Peterson (1979), Praying with the psalms, New York: HarperCollins, (p:introduction).