Prayer & Desire

"True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words: for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then, is to desire - but to desire what God would have us desire. He who asks what he does not from the bottom of his heart desire is mistaken in thinking that he prays. Let him spend days in reciting prayers, in mediation or in inciting himself to pious exercises: he prays not once truly if he really desires not the things he pretends to ask. O! How few there are who pray! For how few are they who desire what is truly good!"
Francois Fenelon, (1651-1715)

Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4

You do not have, because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly,
James 4:2-3