Prayer as (honest) dialogue

Like the psalms of lament, Jeremiah’s prayers are intense and uncompromising in their voicing of complaints against God and his fellow Israelites. In many ways, they are models for unrestrained honesty that is characteristic of genuine prayer. In fact, one important feature of Jeremiah’s prayers as they are presented in chaps. 11–20 is that they are almost all followed by a divine response. This structural presentation comes not only as a stark reminder that prayer is essentially a dialogue but also that Jeremiah’s prayers ought to be read in conjunction with the divine response.—Standing in the Breach, pages 257–58

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I'm working through a commentary on Habakkuk right now, and this resonates very well. There are many similarities between Habakkuk and the confessions/prayers of Jeremiah.
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