The logic of prayer

Again, why bother to pray? I am not against prayer. I am all for it. God has commanded us to pray. It’s just that I need to also understand it, understand its logic if I may, so I can fully participate in it, with my entire being.

I do not have a problem with prayer as a way to seek God. He calls us to pray and to pray fervently. I spend time talking to him, interceding for others. I do not have a problem with opening my heart to him, I bare all in my personal prayers, my doubts, my fears, my longings, my joys. There is even one time when I asked him straight out – “what if you are not real?” His answer to me was clear and simple and plain – “that is what your faith is for.”

So, I am all for prayer and yet I find it hard to understand it. Who am I to ask? Who am I to change his mind? I know I am bought with a price – Christ’s blood – and I know I can ask God for anything in Jesus’ name and it will be given me. But what about the sovereignty of God?

And if we say that all things are already set in its place, God has planned everything out and even before a word is in our mouth, he knows it already; whatever we say and do, when and what and where we pray, he knows; it is all pre-planned and his plan will be carried out. Doesn’t that make us automatons?

What then, is the logic of prayer?

Pray so that God will act? What makes us think that if we don’t pray, God won’t work?

pearlie