Is there a biblical theory that tries to explain the mechanism of prayer?

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Prayer is not a mechanism. It's a divine privilege.

Prayer is "wireless", instant communication with God in heaven. Indeed, God even knows what his "saints" are going to say in prayer before a word is on our lips - see Psalm 139:1-7. That was king David's experience long before Daniel received confirmation of that.

The verses you quoted in Daniel, combined with everything Jesus said about prayer to "our Father who art in heaven" are about the fullest we can get to forming a theology of prayer. Whole books have been written on this privilege of prayer.

However, your question then changes tack completely to bring in an actual experience of what a child considered to be God ignoring his prayers, that sexual abuse against him be stopped. A few billion people, over the centuries, could well have thought much the same thing. They pleaded with God in prayer regarding some dreadful situation, or urgent need, yet God seemed to disregard their prayers. That's because they didn't get what they prayed for. But the answer to their prayers was, "No." Or, with hindsight, they might have realised it was "No, not yet". Decades later, God might have shown the person that his will did not lie in the problem they presented, but that there was a deeper, more urgent problem at root, which he would deal with first, or later.

That was my experience before I became a Christian. I thought I was a Christian, zealously devoted to the form of religion I had been brought up in. I prayed quite a lot. But in my early 20s I suffered years of dreadful depression that was bringing me down, even to thoughts of not being able to continue living. One night, utterly at the end of myself, I could only cry out to God to help me. I could say no more. All articulation was gone.

Well, shortly after, God's answer to my desperate situation started to come, though I didn't see it as that till years later. That was because God chose to deal with the real, underlying, spiritual problem I had (believing I was a Christian when I was not). Some years later I had repented of my sin (manifested in how I reacted to the grip of my depression) and, with the help of various Christians getting me to re-read the Bible. Once I saw who the Jesus of the Bible really is, God brought me to spiritual life, as a Christian. Oh, and the initial horror that got me to my knees? That gradually faded as I started to live in the faith of Jesus Christ. Now that I'm the wrong side of 70, I can appreciate with hindsight how God did, indeed, hear my prayer of despair, and trace his hand in answering, over many years.

This answer, I hope, will help show how prayer is not a mechanism, but a privilege, and that God sovereignly deigns to answer sincere prayers in his own way, in his own time, and always for the glory of his Name.

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