There are few things in life that can destroy your confidence faster than standing in front of a hotel shower you've never used before.
At home, you're completely qualified to take a shower. You've been doing it successfully for decades. But find yourself in a Marriott, and suddenly you're examining a chrome knob like an archaeologist exploring some extinct civilization. Does it turn? Pull? What does that lever do? Somewhere a designer won an award for this, and nobody's been able to find the hot water since.
So you experiment. Left gets you a blast of glacier runoff aimed at the one part of you that wasn't ready. Right takes you from Arctic to molten with nothing in between. At one point the rain head, the handheld and the tub faucet all come on at once, and you're getting hosed from three directions like you wandered into a car wash without a car.
What you don't do is call the front desk. That would mean admitting a grown adult can't operate a shower, so you'd rather stand there shivering and keep your dignity, which, for the record, went down the drain three knobs ago. Eventually you figure it out. You always do, right about the time you've lost feeling in your toes.
A lot of us pray the same way. Most of the time we can muddle through on our own, and that's the problem. Muddling through works just often enough that we'll try every knob we can find before we'll admit we don't know how it works. Prayer becomes the call we make once we're freezing.
James wrote to people standing in that shower: "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." Without finding fault. No sighing, no "You've been doing this how long?" Just help, from a God who's never once been surprised by what we didn't know.
As for that shower, nobody really knows how it works except whoever designed it, and he lives in Sweden, doesn't speak English, and isn't taking calls. Good thing the one who designed you speaks your language and always picks up.