As an introduction to the topic of prayer shelf life, can Creator briefly summarize why prayer is necessary at all?

This is a very good question. There are many misconceptions about the divine, what our role is, what it ought to be, and the role of human in conducting their affairs and interacting with the divine. All are important considerations. The greater the clarity about the interaction and the rules in force and how we will or will not interact with you are vital to your future success as well as ours. We have a vast experiment of a sort underway bestowing upon humanity special privileges heretofore not allowed on the part of anyone in the universe. Everything within the visible universe and other dimensions is our creation, but we want very much to have variety and opportunities for a kind of independence of creativity on aspects of our consciousness. And in this pursuit, we create many, many beings of all kinds—various types of animal and plant life as well as sentient beings with higher-level functioning. There are advanced beings in other dimensions who greatly outrank you in intellectual firepower. That is true of physical extraterrestrials who you contend with at the current time because they are on the Earth, although behind the scenes, but interfering with your world. When we created your galaxy, we created a vast free will zone of free agency to allow the life forms to be responsible for determining their fate or fortune as the case may be. You were all given the gifts of free agency to do what you choose, go where you choose to go, and live your life as you wish with a total freedom to express that free will by making any choices you desire. This comes with it the necessity to reckon with other beings who may be competing for space, for resources, and have desires of their own which may or may not align with yours. So there may end up being conflicts, but that is anticipated and a part of the broad learning that can be a tremendous benefit from going through the exercise. That is the ultimate goal we have, not to just watch people struggle and adapt to a challenging environment, but to watch you learn and grow in productive ways to expand your reach, expand your very capabilities through that growth, to do more than ever before, and prepare yourselves for a further enhancement that we can bestow when you are truly ready. To get there requires your success in mastering the environment you have been given despite the complications that have developed. There are times when calling on us is very, very appropriate. You are in a state of ignorance about many, many things. We can help you with insight and wisdom, with guidance and reminders, and useful hints to help foster making good choices and devising strategies more likely to be successful than not, and so on. We can help you to stay safe, to shield you from some things and protect you, but you must always ask, otherwise we will leave you entirely on your own. This is the biggest misconception people have about the divine, that God will take care of everything, that God knows all, God knows what will happen so God can step in and prevent difficulties, right the wrongs that occur, and seek justice on the behalf of the downtrodden, and so on. While we have the power and wherewithal to do all of these things, we will not act unilaterally because that will short-circuit the task of learning and growth underway here as a proving ground for human capability. You must demonstrate success in being able to manage things, to earn your way forward, in a sense, in gaining greater power, knowledge, and reach. We can certainly help you and that is part of the learning, to know your limits, to know what the divine realm is all about, what it can do and cannot do, and have the discernment to use good judgment about bringing this resource to bear. This is what prayer is for, to call on us in meaningful ways at appropriate times and in a way that can get the desired end result. This too requires learning and a greater understanding about the rules for interacting, how we go about doing things, and the criteria we use to decide what is appropriate and what may not be. The better you understand us, the better you will be at making requests for assistance that are likely to pay off, and sooner rather than later. This is what your channel has been doing for quite some time now to optimize his Healing Protocol by learning how the divine realm goes about healing and incorporating requests for the same high-level interventions we bring to bear for such needs, and this at once gives great power to this Lightworker Healing Protocol because it speaks our language with respect to the intention and is in divine alignment and includes many strategies for greater empowerment, greater leverage to get the greatest level of divine intervention allowable. This is analogous to what people need to learn about prayer, "that the purpose is to ask for help." The more you learn about the rules of the road, so to speak, the better you will be at making your prayers count.