I like the way your group frames organized religion. I’ve always looked at faith as being different from religion. That being said, given God’s omnipotence, what is the point of prayer? He knows are needs so is this a way for us to have to prove something? I’d appreciate your perspective.
A:
As the first respondent, I believe prayer is a personal and more intimate connection to God’s Word. And He commands us to pray constantly, not just occasionally. It’s a personal choice as to HOW we pray. Some create a special place, some people journal their prayers, and some have groups who they pray with/for each other.
Each morning when I wake, I ask God to protect my friends and family as we walk through this day. And I sometimes name each family or friend who might have a special need on this particular day. We need to pray our wants, needs & desires to Him constantly and entrust that the requests will be met as He sees fit. Our prayers are part of His plan & purposes for us. And since He is Sovereign, and we do not know his future plans for us, we can & should present our requests to Him at all times. John 5:17 says, “if you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you”. And since we don’t know the will of God, our prayers will be answered for our good and His glory.
I’m reminded so many times as I reflect on the past, how my prayers have been answered, but not always as I thought they should have been. Many prayers in my life have been MUCH better outcomes than what I envisioned. And lots were answered in ways I was sad about. And it is all part of life. Constant prayers, for me, is an expression of trust in Him, along with His wisdom & love for me.
I’m also blessed to have a wonderful group of friends & family who share similar values. As we all walk this faint path of life, it’s great to share our fears, struggles, excitement & joys with each other. Prayer in numbers is VERY powerful, in my opinion!
In closing, I also want to share that I have a “prayer book” I write in each time someone is going through something. I write surgery dates, procedure dates, due dates, wedding dates, and names. At the end of each month, I read what was written. I get to specifically remember each person on my heart, in silent prayer. Or I reach out personally & check in on them. It’s just another way to keep my prayers & thoughts in an intimate relation with Him.
“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10
As the second respondent, I have often asked the question, “Yes, why pray?” This is a great question! Such a great question that 100’s of articles, volumes of books, and untold sermons have been devoted to answering this question. I will only scratch the surface here with this answer. But I do hope that these words inspire you to pursue God more passionately and honestly.
If God is omniscient (all-knowing), doesn’t he know everything we need? And if he is both omnipotent (all-powerful) and good, won’t he provide it whether we pray or not? So goes a common line of reasoning about prayer, which influences many of us, to our own impoverishment and the detriment of Christ’s kingdom coming into our lives. I know this is true for many a Christian, for I have often struggled with these thoughts in my own prayer life.
This reasoning has a certain logic and seems to have some biblical plausibility. Scripture clearly tells us that God is all-knowing: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account” (Hebrews 4:13), and that he is all-powerful and “…does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:35), and that “…the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations” (Psalm 100:5).
However, to conclude from these truths that prayer is unnecessary is to overlook the heart of God and the broader teaching of Scripture. The Bible does indeed teach that everything we need for life and godliness is found in God, who is willing and able to give it and knows our need even before we ask. But it does not teach that he bestows these riches upon us automatically, as a matter of right. Jesus teaches us about prayer through the following verses:
- Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)
- Have faith in God…. whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:22, 24)
- This kind can come out only by prayer. (Mark 9:29)
- Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. (Luke 22:46)
- If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer. (Matthew 21:22)
- …they should always pray and not give up. (Luke 18:1)
The clear import of these and similar passages is that, in many instances, we can lay hold of God’s promises only through prayer offered in faith.
For the Christian, praying is supposed to be like breathing, easier to do than not to do. We pray for a variety of reasons. For one thing, prayer is a form of serving God (Luke 2:36-38) and obeying Him. We pray because God commands us to pray (Philippians 4:6-7). Prayer is exemplified for us by Christ and the early church. If Jesus thought it was worthwhile to pray, we should also.
John Calvin places great stress on the importance of prayer, saying: “Words fail to explain how necessary prayer is …” He held that it is, “…by the benefit of prayer that we reach those riches which are laid up for us with the Heavenly Father” and that…
…after we have been instructed by faith to recognize that whatever we need and whatever we lack is in God… it remains for us to seek in him, and in prayers to ask of him, what we have learned to be in him.
He saw no conflict between prayer and divine intervention but, rather, taught that in prayer “…we invoke the presence both of his providence … and of his power.”
Prayer and providence, then, far from being opposing one another, are actually reciprocal. Providence inspires prayer, and prayer invokes providence. Here divine sovereignty and human responsibility mysteriously converge in a way we cannot fully explain but which is nonetheless real. It is a mystery that may not be solved until we reach heaven!
There are then a couple of questions to ask.
First, by failing to pray, can we forfeit personal blessings which God would otherwise bestow? It does appear that in his sovereignty, God has ordained believing prayer as a necessary means for our receiving many of his promises. Therefore, James can say, “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2). And Calvin says
…to us nothing is promised to be expected from the Lord, which we are not also bidden to ask of him in prayers… and he is inactive, as if forgetting us, when he sees us idle and mute.
And so, while some measure of blessing comes to everyone because God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good” (Matthew 5:45), it is only through prayer that we lay hold of many of the riches he promises.
Second, by failing to pray, can we hinder the work of God’s kingdom? Scripture is clear that ultimately God’s kingdom will prevail over the kingdoms of this world and that his purposes will be fulfilled. Yet Scripture also teaches that believing prayer is somehow a significant part of that process. Jesus teaches us to pray “…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6-10); and to “ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:38). And he promises, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me anything in my name and I will do it” (John 14:13-14).
Prayers un-prayed will be prayers unanswered. If the Syrian woman with the demon-influenced daughter had not prayed to Christ, her daughter would not have been made whole (Mark 7:26–30). If the blind man outside Jericho had not called out to Christ, he would have remained blind (Luke 18:35–43). In one sense, prayer is like sharing the gospel with people. We do not know who will respond to the message of the gospel until we share it. In the same way, we will never see the results of answered prayer unless we pray.
In Paul’s ministry prayer is consistently a vital element for open doors and effective ministry (Ephesians 6:19; Colossians 4:3-4; 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2), and a key to his deliverance from prison (Philippians 1:19). The Apostles devoted themselves “…to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). And James exhorts us to imitate the faith and prayer of Elijah, saying, “the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16- 18). The inescapable conclusion from these and many similar passages is that the Sovereign God has ordered his creation in such a way as to allow prayer to play a vital part in the timing and outworking of his purposes.
If it is true then, that the fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much, doesn’t the kingdom suffer loss from missed opportunity when we neglect earnest prayer? What would have happened if Moses had not interceded for Israel on Sinai (Ex. 32:1-14), or if Elijah had neglected to pray on Mt. Carmel (1 Ki. 18:36- 39), or if the Jerusalem church had not made earnest prayer for Peter as he awaited execution (Ac. 12:1-5)?
CS Lewis is often quoted, “I pray because I can’t help myself… The need flows out of me all the time… Prayer doesn’t change God; it changes me.”
King David had A LOT to say about prayer. Of the 150 Psalms in the Bible, nearly half were written by David. In one of my favorite Psalms, number 27, he writes:
7Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, and be gracious to me and answer me. 8When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.”
For David, this is not a casual conversation, with a ho-hum, take it or leave it sort of attitude. David is pleading, crying out to God. If David is crying out to God with his voice, I imagine that this involved tears, emotions, and deep longings. Maybe you can picture David with bended knees on the floor, pleading to God in many of his psalms. I can picture him on the floor because that is often where I find myself crying out to God! This means I don’t have to clean myself up before coming to God. I can come to God with tears and snot and all my range of emotions. And boy, do I have a wide range of emotions. I have often prayed my most earnest prayers as simply, “Jesus! Help me,” over and over and over again. Not because I don’t know or use other prayers, but sometimes that is all I can muster out of my mouth.
The purpose of all prayer is to find God’s will and to make that our prayer. Above all, prayer isn’t merely a way to get things from God but a way to get more of God himself. This is why David does not say, “Your hand, Oh Lord, I shall seek,” but rather “Your face, Oh Lord, I shall seek.” David wants intimacy with God over and above what God can give him. David knows that God is the initiator in this dialogue: “When you said, ‘Seek my face…’” This is staggering. Despite my distracted, fidgety, wandering defiance, God beckons me in and — wonder of wonders — offers me himself. And this is precisely what David needed, that special presence of God in his life.
For David, this is what prayer offers him. And for myself, the most ordinary believer in the world, I have access to the most intimate and unbreakable relationship with the Lord of the universe. I have never met the president of the United States. I doubt I would merit his time and attention. For someone to have access to the president, they must have credentials, accomplishments—unless, of course, you’re one of his children. That little detail changes everything! In the same way, through prayer, our heads and our hearts come together experientially into our Father’s loving embrace. The only person who dares to wake a king up at 3:00 a.m. for a glass of water is his child. As believers and fellow heirs to the Kingdom in Jesus, we have that kind of access. Anytime. Anywhere.
Of all the characters of the Bible, David understood that prayer is how God would give him so many of the unimaginable things. Indeed, prayer makes it safe for God to give us many of the things we most desire. It is the way we know God, the way we finally treat God as the God of the universe, and not a genie in a bottle. Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life.
The ability to converse and commune with the King of the universe isn’t just an honor. It is the beautiful union of two seemingly opposite truths: awe before an infinite being and intimacy with a close and personal friend. Because we’re made not just to know God, but to experience him, prayer is the furthest thing from a sterile concept or boring duty. It’s an invitation to unimaginable joy. That is probably why David also wrote,
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in him! Psalm 34:8
Pastor Tim Keller was asked shortly before his death, “Looking back, is there anything you wish you had done differently in ministry?”
“Absolutely,” Keller replied. “I should have prayed more.” This is both encouraging and disheartening to me as I look at my own prayer life!
So finally, why pray? Because the Sovereign God, who is indeed omniscient, omnipotent, and good, has established prayer as the means by which we receive what he has promised and help fulfill what he has ordained, as His kingdom is established on earth.
I can only wonder what blessings I have missed today in my personal life because of my failure to earnestly pray. And I can only wonder what might happen if we followed the examples of Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Whitefield, Spurgeon, Bonhoeffer, Keller, and many others, who devoted themselves to prayer. Perhaps it is time for us as individuals and congregations to devote ourselves to prayer and to cry out with the Apostles,
Lord, teach us to pray.
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