The Christian Old Testament commands us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" in Deuteronomy 6.5. That threesome of "heart, soul, might" becomes a foursome in the Christian New Testament: "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength" in Mark 6:5.

In my understanding of prayer that addition of "mind" is extremely important and that is why I cannot distinguish for myself between study and prayer.
Within that relationship and because of it, I do not believe--I positively disbelieve--in an interventionist God who is normally absent but periodically intervenes in response to prayerful requests for intrusive help. God is all around us--like air, for example--but as non-violent justice and the absence-of-that-presence is violent injustice.

Primary prayer, therefore, is a life lived in union with God. That is why Jesus in Mark's gospel, for example, spends so little time stopping to pray--he is already in a permanent state of prayer through that love-relationship with God. Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, are somewhat embarrassed by that absence of prayer-acts for Jesus in Mark. So Matthew suggests prayer-in-the-closet and Luke mentions prayer-in-the-desert to explain why Mark so seldom mentions Jesus at prayer--it was always done where nobody saw it!

Secondary prayer is taking specific hopes and fears under the shadow of that divine love to let them be shaped by it, sheltered within in, and accepted through it. It is as valid as it is secondary.