Have you ever asked that question? I have. If God is sovereign – and He is – doesn’t that mean He has already decreed what is going to happen in this world and in my life? If so, what is the good of prayer? Why pray?

Jesus said, “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” (Matthew 6:8) If that is true, then why even ask? But right after saying that, Jesus goes on in the next verse to tell us how to pray, and to give us what we call The Lord’s Prayer. Why?

Praying for the Right Reasons

Too often our idea of prayer is to get things from God for ourselves. That is not what prayer is all about. Prayer is not a way of getting things from God, but in order that we may get to know God.

Prayer reveals the Presence of God, equally present at all times and in every condition – a fact we often forget, particularly when we stray from Him.

So, back to the question…

What’s the good of prayer? Why should we pray? Will prayer really change God’s mind?

The following notes were taken from a little book, If Ye Shall Ask, by Oswald Chambers.

Praying in Jesus’ Name

We are told to pray in Jesus’ name. But what does that mean exactly? Is it merely a phrase we tack onto the end of our prayers? “In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

To pray in Jesus’ name means to pray in accordance with His nature. To understand His nature, we have to get to know Him by reading and studying the scriptures. When we pray according to His nature, the answers will not be according to our nature, but with His.

When I was a young woman, and my first husband was in the hospital, suffering with a brain tumour, he had a lot of visitors from our church in Toronto. His friends had a hard time accepting the possibility that he would die. God wouldn’t take him – he was only 28 – and we had been married for less than a year! But a year and a half later, he was still in the hospital, paralyzed down his left side and almost blind, and obviously not getting better.

One of our friends pulled me aside one day and said, “Maybe he isn’t getting better because you don’t have enough faith. You should be praying for healing, and believing God will do it.”

I was 24, and that really bothered me. Was it true? I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God could heal Bob. I had been praying all along that He would give me the grace to accept whatever His will might be for Bob… physical healing, or taking him Home. Was I wrong?

I took it to the Lord in earnest prayer, asking Him to give me the assurance to believe He would heal Bob if that was the way I should be praying. He never did. He gave me a deep peace in knowing I could trust Him, whichever way He chose to work. And when He called Bob Home the following summer, I knew He had done what was best for Bob, and everyone else involved. It was wrong to demand of God what I wanted Him to do. It was right to place my burden in His loving hands, and trust Him with the results.

Bob and I had just over two years of marriage, when he was called Home. I went on that fall of ’78 to attend Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills AB. In my senior year I met Ian, and we were married there in February ’82. But that is another story, for another time…

God is sovereign, and infinitely loving toward His children. He never makes a mistake, and His timing is always perfect. Those are just a few of many wonderful truths about our Lord. Just a small part of His magnificent nature. Resting in those truths alone will make a big difference in our prayers, and we will begin to see that God never leaves a prayer unanswered, and He never says no. He gives us what we want, deep down, when we are fully surrendered to Him.

Note: As you will see from the comments below, I originally wrote this more than a year ago, but wanted to post it again for friends who didn’t see it before.