Why Pray?

When you pray, are you always thinking that God knows the situation better than you do and cares even more than you do about your friend’s fading health, your child's faltering faith, or the bickering in your own church congregation -- so why are you praying?
Do you have a hard time believing that He will work harder or more intensely to do all he can for them because you have remembered to pray about it? Can you really change His mind and make Him care more or somehow "enable" Him to do what He couldn't until someone prayed? Will it “work” better, faster or more powerfully if you get lots and lots of people to pray for something?
Does God NEED your prayers before He is free to work? Wouldn't that put an unrealistic responsibility on every Christian?

The key is that we do not pray in order to change or influence God, but so that God can change and influence us.
But you might say, "When I tell myself that prayer is more for me, for my own spiritual growth and faith, then I'm right back to wondering what I should be really praying for. If it's all about strengthening the faith of those who pray, where does intercessory prayer come in?"
Knowing how much God risked to give us free will, is it realistic that He will march in and convince a loved one to abandon a dangerous lifestyle, or even send angels to protect someone from suffering the consequences of bad choices?
A friend said to me, "In the Bible we are told to pray and I believe that somehow it is important that we do so. And so I continue to pray. But sometimes when I pray in a group for someone's healing, I feel doubtful. I'm not too confident that it's making any difference to anyone. And when I stand saying good bye to loved ones and we pray that God will watch over them and keep them safe I wonder if the trip will be any different than if we forgot to pray."
I told him that I remain convinced that the true benefit of prayer is for us to present ourselves before God as His children and to, with bowed head and bended knee, admit our subservience and dependence on Him.
Prayer is not a time for us to try to manipulate God. God always answers our prayer with "Yes" or "No" or "Later".
God is not going to "work harder" because we pray harder, anymore than He is going to love us more when we do good things. He loves us now as much as He ever will. He wants us to do good things, but His love is not related to our doing. Isn't that great?!
God's benevolence, His love and His mercy does not await our prayers. That should take a burden off our shoulders. God is going to go right on doing the right thing at the right time, whether we pray or not. That doesn't mean that we will always agree that what God does is the right thing, or that He does it at the right time. That doesn't mean that we should not pray, any more that being saved means that we then determine to live an immoral life.
We pray because God loves us, and because it is our way of being with Him. God doesn't need anything we have or anything we can ever do. God is going to do the right thing, with our prayers or without them.
Of course we pray for a couple with marriage problems to be reconciled. But often they don't. Of course we pray for the end of war and hatred. But war and hatred continues. Of course we pray for someone who is terminally ill -- but we logically realize that there is a one for one co-relation between human life and death -- sooner or later every human will die.
Are there times then when we should pray that God allows a terminally ill, suffering person to die? I have and do, for I don't believe that death is the end, but the beginning.
One of the answers is that we pray for God's will to be done -- for we acknowledge His perfection, holiness and sovereignty -- our heavenly Father truly does know best. We may in all sincerity pray for a particular outcome or conclusion, but at all times we must acknowledge that we don't know what is best.
Again, why pray? Why celebrate Jesus' birth at Christmas, after all, He was already born, and Christmas will happen with us or without us? Why celebrate His resurrection, after all, He already was resurrected, and our part in giving thanks won't change anything? Why do we attend a ball game of our favorite team? Perhaps because we want to be there -- because it's our team -- because we are loyal -- we are committed -- because win or lose we will be there for them.
Why pray? Doesn't God know best? Yes, He does -- and He still longs to hear from us. In His infinite wisdom He loves to hear us chatter, He loves to hear us argue, He loves to hear us protest, He loves to hear us beseech Him on behalf of someone else -- He loves all of that because somehow, in all of that, Jesus is living in us, creating something new, something of God rather than of the flesh.
In prayer we are presenting ourselves before God, class is in session, and we are there to be with Him, to soak Him up, to learn from Him, to be seated before Him, to enjoy Him.
We go to concerts to hear our favorite music, even though we own a CD of exactly the same music. We want to hear it performed live. We want to be there.
Why pray? Why be involved? Why be a part of God's family? Why not disengage and drift away? Why?
Whether you pray for 30 seconds or 2 minutes or 15 minutes, whether you say everything you need to, whether you couch it in just the right way, whether you feel you have presented a convincing argument or not -- at the end of the day that's not what prayer is all about. May we all continue to pray without ceasing!

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