The following two examples bear witness to the same state…

““The following two examples bear witness to the same state of mind: a certain believer asks God for various favors not because he wishes to obtain them but “to obey the divine command” expressed in the Koran—as if in commanding or permitting personal prayer God was not considering the ends of this prayer and as if He could appreciate a form of obedience that disregarded the sufficient reason for the act commanded or permitted! In this case “command” is actually a rather grand word, for in reality God does not command us to have needs or make requests of Him but rather invites us out of mercy to ask Him for what we lack; we can pray for our daily bread or for a cure just as we can pray for inward graces, but there is no question of praying for the sake of praying because God ordered for the sake of ordering. The second example is the following: another believer, unlike the first, begins with the idea that everything is predestined, and he therefore abstains from formulating any prayers, in spite of the “divine command” this time, because “everything that must happen will happen anyway”—as if God would give Himself the trouble of commanding or permitting superfluous attitudes and as if prayer too were not predestined!””

— Frithjof Schuon