prayer as essential to life as blood and breathing

This is an excerpt from this past Friday's (5/26) My Utmost for His Highest devotion:

"If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect joint with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an excercise, it is the life" (speaking about 1 Thessalonians 5:17).