There are certainly times when we tell God things in prayer. We tell God our fears and desires. We tell God what we or others may need. We tell God of places and peoples in the world that need God's intervention.

Many of the Psalms invite us into this kind of praying. But we while the Bible gives us a warrant for such boldness before God, we must also take care that we don't invert the relationship. We can wrestle with God, fight with God, challenge God, but in the end we must always yield to God.

If our relationship with God were a sentence, God would be the subject performing the action and we are the object upon whom and within whom God acts. The Subject of prayer---the real Mover of prayer---is the Holy Trinity who prays in us.

So when we pray, we're not so much working to connect with God. We are, instead, working to remove everything that prevents us from the experience of intimate union which is the goal of our lives.

This is why silence is an essential part of prayer. In fact, silence is the highest form of prayer. In silence, all that competes with God for our attention is exposed and we must confront and release everything that stands in the way between us and the Beloved. We must even abandon even our piety, for piety---even the warmest feelings about God---can ending masquerading as God, hooking us to a manifestation that is still not God as God is.

In stillness and silence we release everything that prevents us from resting in God and listening in the depth of our hearts for that Voice that cannot assure us of our belovedness until we're no longer listening to any lesser voice or sound.

The Voice of the Beloved comes to us in the "sound of sheer silence" (1 Kings 19.12).