J. Gary Millar, Calling on the Name of the Lord: A Biblical Theology of Prayer (New Studies in Biblical Theology), 238).

“What we should pray for is controlled by the gospel. Over and over again in the Bible God tells us to ask, because he is delighted to give. It is no accident that all the words in the Bible for ‘prayer’ mean the same thing—they mean ask. Which fits perfectly with the gospel, does it not? The core of the gospel is that we have nothing, contribute nothing, bring nothing to God—we are rescued by grace alone through faith—asking—alone. It should not come as a shock that prayer, which is made possible by the gospel and shaped by the gospel, works exactly the same way. The gospel tells us that God gives to us; we do not give to him. So we need to ask. God has spoken to us. We talk back to him, which means asking. Asking for help to understand what God has done for us, to live in the light of what he has done for us, to hold on to what he has done for us, to show other people what he has done for us”