<p>2:37 <i>And she had been a widow eighty four years. She departed not from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day</i>- She &quot;departed not&quot; in the sense that she was regularly present for the morning and evening sacrifices and prayers. She &quot;came up&quot; to the temple to worship (:38) so she was not actually there all the time. Again we have the language of observed experience, as we have with demons. It appeared that she never left the temple, just as small children have the impression that their school teachers live at the school.</p><p>Men like David, Hezekiah and Daniel appreciated that God knew already. In a sense, all that will happen has happened; so prayer is an opening up of ourselves to God, a <i>service</i> 'worshiping' of God (Dan. 6:16; Lk. 2:37), for His glory and for our benefit, rather than a means of communicating information to Him. Therefore they opened themselves up to Him, expressing their understanding that He knew the situation, and didn't present a long list of concrete requests to Him. Their relationship with Him went far beyond that kind of surface level. What of ours?</p>