Bonhoeffer on Prayer

My last post was from Bonhoeffer, and so is this one. (His classic work Life Together is a short book that I commend to anyone). In writing about the Psalms, he draws some important lessons about Christian prayer:

Here we learn, first, what prayer means. It means praying according to the Word of God, on the basis of promises. Christian prayer takes its stand on the solid ground of the revealed Word and has nothing to do with vague, self-seeking vagaries.

It is really easy to pray using vague, self-seeking vagaries. These prayers don't tend to be specific for one thing, and tend to be focused on what I want rather than on what God wants. Such prayers tend to treat God like a cosmic Santa Claus - "I'll be really good if you'll give me this thing I want." What does it look like to "pray according to the Word of God?" That's a good question to ponder. I suppose that it involves praying the kinds of prayers we see in Scripture. Bonhoeffer is pointing to the Psalms as a good place to start. We might also look at the model Jesus gave us in the Lord's prayers. The epistles often include challenging and wonderful prayers that can be made on behalf of yourself or others. See, for example, Ephesians 3:14-21 or Philippians 1:9-12. I suppose it also means that we anchor our prayers in revealed Truth. We often pray "in Jesus name," but don't often really ponder what that means.

These are a few thoughts off the top of my head. What do you think? What is the difference between biblical prayer and self-serving vagaries? Which do your prayers more resemble?