Jesus left us with no greater gift than prayer. Of course it was a part of the lives of Jews and God-fearers before Jesus, but it plays out in so many critical places in his life, we really should consider nothing of higher importance in our life in the Spirit. In this story, a spirit that was possessing a boy was impossible to cast out without prayer. No further details are given between the prayer lives of the disciples and that of Jesus, but we have already seen that Jesus went into prayer and came out walking on the water, seemingly as a natural outgrowth of his prayer life.