"Jim -- Did you catch that show last night?
Pam -- No, I don't watch TV. I have a life.
Jim -- Really? What's that like?
Pam -- It's nice. You should get one.
Jim -- But then who will watch my television?
"
- the NBC sitcom "The Office"
Monday, March 1, 2010
I was asked the following question by a college student recently: Why should we pray?
Here's where he was coming from: God already knows everything. God gives us what we need. What purpose does prayer have?
The quick answer I gave was that God commands us to pray, and that it's an important way for us to know Him more and commune with Him. And last weekend our pastor made the point that God uses our prayers, somehow, as a means to His pre-ordained ends.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, though. What would you say to a young, intelligent and conflicted College student who asks "Why should I pray?"
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Comments on "The Problem of Prayer":
3. Lauren Mulford
- 03/01/2010 9:01 pm CST
I also think that with evangelism and prayer etc it changes my heart. When I hate someone, I pray for them and slowly I see that I start to love them. It's weird. As a very-close-to-being-Calvinist it's weird to read passages like Exodus 32:14 and reconcile it to God never changing, but there it is. Can we persuade God? It seems that Moses did. Perhaps that is just the way it seems, though.
I pray because God commands it. It seems that praying does good because it changes me even if it doesn't change God.
Final note - I heard a quote that was something like "It seems that more coincidences happen when I pray." or something like that.
4. Andrew
- 03/01/2010 10:46 pm CST
My answer is something like Lauren's.
I pray mostly because of how it affects me. When I pray, I enter communion with God, and there, temporal troubles pass.
My difficulty with that happens when I am faced with the troubles of another. If I pray for the sick, what does it matter if I leave convinced God is in control? The pain remains, I cannot always pass my peace to another.
So, I don't really know. I have some answers, but I don't really know how to say them without someone accusing me of heresy. :-)
5. Molly
- 03/01/2010 11:03 pm CST
Primary reason is to get to know the Lord more. But further, when we pray we pray His will (or at least, that's the goal), and we get to be a part of what He's doing. While our prayers do not necessarily have mystical powers that change the outcome of whatever we are praying for (GOD does the work, that can't be disputed), I wouldn't pray if I believed that my prayers didn't change anything or that whether or not I pray didn't make a difference in the nations, the people around me, my family, my own heart, etc. I don't understand how that balance works, but from what God has revealed through the Word I have no other choice but to believe that, as Oswald Chambers said, "Prayer is the work."
6. damien
- 03/02/2010 7:47 am CST
c.s.lewis says that we pray for the same reason we put on a coat when it's cold. why put on a coat since god is almighty and has already determined whether or not i'm going to be cold or warm? prayer is another way that god has granted us power to be involved and influential in the outcome of events and circumstances.
Leave a Comment:
Short answer: Same as evangelism, or any other step of faith -- God grants us the privilege of being the means to his ends.
But, yes, as you said, it's impossible to deep intimacy with someone you don't talk to.