Someone asked the familiar question – if God is sovereign why pray?

Someone asked the familiar question – if God is sovereign why pray? I started looking at  that question which has taken me & is taking me to various Scriptures & thoughts. Some I thought I might put before you & see where it leads you in your own personal seeking of God. Excerpts were taken & edited from a book God’s Sovereignty & Prayer by Arthur W. Pink

Is God in control?

John 1:13—"Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but OF GOD".

"The Lord kills, and makes alive: He brings down to the grave, and raises up. The Lord makes poor, and makes rich: He brings low, and lifts up. He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with nobles, and to inherit a seat of honor" (1 Sam. 2:6-8).

"He does according to His will in the host of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What hast Thou done?"(Dan. 4:35).

“I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

“This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:11).

Eph. 1:1 expresses that God "works all things after the counsel of His own will.”                                                        

"For who has directed the Spirit of the Lord? or who hath been His counselor?" (Isa. 40:13).

Men may have occasion to alter their purposes, for in their short-sightedness they are frequently unable to anticipate what may arise after their plans are formed. But not so with God, for He knows the end from the beginning. To affirm that God changes His purpose is either to denounce His goodness or to deny His eternal wisdom.

Why should we pray?

First and foremost, prayer has been appointed that the Lord God Himself should be honored. God requires we should recognize that He is, indeed, "the high and exalted One that inhabits eternity.” Prayer points to God’s glory as we acknowledge our dependency upon Him. When we humbly make requests to God we cast ourselves on His power and mercy. In seeking blessings from God we acknowledge that He is the provider of every good and perfect gift. That prayer brings glory to God is further seen from the fact that prayer calls faith into action, and nothing from us is so honoring and pleasing to Him as the confidence of our hearts.

In the second place, prayer is appointed by God for our spiritual blessing, and for our growth in grace. Prayer is designed by God for our humbling. It is a coming into the Presence of God, and a sense of His all-consuming majesty produces a realization of our nothingness and unworthiness. Again; prayer is designed by God for the exercise of our faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17). It is exercised in prayer.

Prayer calls love into action. Those who love the Lord draw close to Him, for they delight in seeking and knowing Him. Not only does prayer call love into action, but through the direct answers to our prayers, our love to God is increased—"I love the Lord, because He hears my voice and my cries for mercy" (Ps. 116:1). Again; prayer is designed by God to teach us the value of the blessings we have from Him, and it causes us to be comforted that He hears us.

Third, prayer is seeking from Him the things which we are in need of. But again the question, “If God has foreordained, before the foundation of the world, everything which happens in time, what is the use of prayer?” If it is true that "of Him and through Him and to Him are all things" (Rom. 11:36), then why pray? What is the use of me coming to God and telling Him what He already knows? What is the use of praying for anything when everything has been ordained beforehand by God? Prayer is not for the purpose of informing God, as if He were ignorant, (the Savior declared "for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him"—Matt. 6:8), but it is to acknowledge that He does know what we need. Prayer is a confession to Him of our sense of the need.

God tells us to pray—"Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). And again, "men ought always to pray" (Luke 18:1). And further: Scripture declares that, "the prayer of faith shall save the sick", and, "the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much" (James 5:15, 16); the Lord Jesus Christ—our perfect Example in all things—was a Man of Prayer. It is evident, that prayer is neither meaningless nor valueless. But still this does not remove the difficulty nor answer the question with which we started out. What then is the relationship between God’s sovereignty and Christian prayer?

First of all, we would say with emphasis, that prayer is not intended to change God’s purpose, nor is it to move Him to form fresh purposes. God has decreed that certain events will take place, but He has also decreed that these events will take place through the means He has appointed for their accomplishment. Even the prayers of His people are included in His eternal decrees. Therefore, instead of prayers being in vain, they are among the means through which God exercises His decrees. "If indeed all things happen by a blind chance, or a fatal necessity, prayers in that case could be of no moral value, and of no use; but since they are regulated by the direction of Divine wisdom, prayers have a place in the order of events" (Haldane).

That prayers for the execution of the very things decreed by God are not meaningless, is clearly taught in the Scriptures. Elijah knew that God was about to give rain, but that did not prevent him from at once praying, (James 5:17, 18). Daniel "understood" by the writings of the prophets that the captivity was to last seventy years, yet when these seventy years were almost ended, we are told that he "set his face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes" (Dan. 9:2, 3). God told the prophet Jeremiah "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end"; but instead of adding, there is, therefore, no need for you to beg Me for these things, He said, "Then you will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:11-13).

In Ezekiel 36 we read of the promises which God has made concerning the future restoration of Israel.  In verse 37 of this same chapter we are told, "This is what the sovereign Lord says; I am ready to hear Israel's prayers for these blessings, and I am ready to grant them their requests. Here then is the design of prayer: not that God’s will may be altered, but that it may be accomplished in His own good time and way. It is because God has promised certain things, that we can ask for them with the full assurance of faith. It is God’s purpose that His will shall be brought about by His own appointed means, and that He may do His people good upon His own terms, and that is, by the ‘means’ and ‘terms’ of asking in prayer. Didn’t the Son of God know for certain that after His death and resurrection He would be exalted by the Father? Surely He did. Yet we find Him asking for this very thing: “And now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.” (John 17:5)! Didn’t He know that none of His people could perish? Yet He asked the Father to "keep" them (John 17:11)!

Our views respecting prayer need to be brought into harmony with the teaching of Scripture on the subject. The popular idea seems to be, that I come to God and ask Him for something that I want, and that I expect Him to give me that which I have asked. This popular belief reduces God to a servant, our servant: doing our bidding, performing our pleasure, granting our desires. No; prayer is a coming to God, telling Him my need, committing my way unto the Lord, and leaving Him to do what is best. This makes my will subject to His, instead of, as in the former case, seeking to bring His will into subjection to mine. Prayer should include, "not my will, but Yours be done". When God pours blessings on a praying people it is not for the sake of their prayers but it is for His own sake, and of His own sovereign will and pleasure. Should it be said, to what purpose then is prayer? It is answered, This is the way and means God has appointed, for the communication of the blessing of His goodness to His people.

Perhaps the one thing that confuses Christians as much as anything else is that of unanswered prayers. They have asked God for something: so far as they are able to judge, they have asked in faith believing they would receive that for which they had asked the Lord - earnestly and repeatedly, but the answer has not come. The result is that, in many cases, faith in the effectiveness of prayer becomes weakened, until hope gives way to despair and prayer is altogether neglected. We must trust that God always does what is best even if we cannot understand it. He never leaves us or forsakes us. His mercies are new every morning and His grace is sufficient for our every need.

Now will it surprise you when we say that every prayer of faith that has ever been offered to God has been answered? In saying this we must refer back to our definition of prayer. Let’s repeat it. Prayer is a coming to God, telling Him my need (or the need of others), committing my way unto the Lord, and then leaving Him to deal with the case as He knows best. This leaves God to answer the prayer in whatever way He sees fit, and often, His answer may be the very opposite of what would be most acceptable to us; yet, if we have really LEFT our need in His hands, it will be His answer. Let’s look at two examples.

In John 11 we read of the sickness of Lazarus. The Lord "loved" him, but He was absent from Bethany. The sisters sent a messenger unto the Lord telling Him of their brother’s condition. And note particularly how their appeal was worded—"Lord, the one You love is sick." That was all. They did not ask Him to heal Lazarus. They did not request Him to go at once to Bethany. They simply spread their need before Him, committed the case into His hands, and left Him to act as He knew best! And what was our Lord’s reply? Did He respond to their appeal? Certainly He did, though not, perhaps, in the way they had hoped. He answered by abiding "two days still in the same place where He was" (John 11:6), and allowing Lazarus to die! But in this instance, that was not all. Later, He journeyed to Bethany and raised Lazarus from the dead.

In the next example (2 Corinthians 12) Paul realizes that he was in danger of becoming "puffed up" and to keep him from exalting himself, a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, was sent to torment him and keep him from getting proud. The apostle spreads his need before the Lord; three times he asked that this thorn in the flesh be removed. Was his prayer answered? Yes, though not in the manner he had desired. The "thorn" was not removed, but grace was given to bear it.

Is it said that the promises of God are all-inclusive, and that we may ask God for what we will? If so, we must call attention to the fact that it is necessary to compare Scripture with Scripture if we are to learn the full mind of God on any subject, and that as this is done we discover God has qualified the promises given to praying souls by saying, "If we ask anything according to His will He hears us" (1 John 5:14). Prayer is communion with God, so that there will be common thoughts between His mind and ours. What is needed is for Him to fill our hearts with His thoughts, and then His desires will become our desires flowing back to Him. Here then is the meeting-place between God’s sovereignty and Christian prayer: If we ask anything according to His will He hears us, and if we do not so ask, He does not hear us; as the apostle James said, "You ask, and receive not, because ye ask with wrong motives, that you might spend it on your own pleasures (4:3).

Didn’t the Lord Jesus tell His disciples, "Whatsoever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it you" (John 16:23)? He did; but this promise does not give praying souls carte blanche. These words of our Lord are in perfect harmony with those of the apostle John—"If we ask anything according to His will He hears us." What is it to ask "in the name of Christ"? Surely it is very much more than a prayer formula where we tack on the words "in the name of Christ." To ask God for anything in the name of Christ, it must be in keeping with who Christ is! To ask God in the name of Christ is as though Christ Himself were the petitioner. We can only ask God for what Christ would ask. To ask in the name of Christ is to set aside our own wills, accepting God’s!

So…what is prayer? Prayer is not so much an act as it is an attitude— an attitude of dependency, dependency upon God. Prayer is a confession of our weakness - of helplessness. Prayer is the acknowledgment of our need and presenting it before God. We do not say that this is all there is in prayer, it is not: but it is an essential element in prayer. We freely admit that we are quite unable to give a complete definition of prayer. It is both an attitude and an act, a human act, and yet there is the Divine element in it too, and it is this which makes an exhaustive analysis impossible to attempt. Therefore, prayer is the very opposite of dictating to God. Because prayer is an attitude of dependency, the one who really prays is submissive, submissive to the Divine will; and submission to the Divine will means, that we are content for the Lord to supply our need according to the order of His own sovereign pleasure.

Here then is the reply to our opening question, and the Scriptural solution to the seeming difficulty. Prayer is not the requesting of God to alter His purpose or for Him to form a new one. Prayer is the taking of an attitude of dependency upon God - the spreading of our need before Him - the asking for those things which are in accordance with His will, and therefore there is nothing whatever inconsistent between Divine sovereignty and Christian prayer.

We have not tried to epitomize the whole teaching of Scripture on the subject of prayer, instead, we have confined ourselves, more or less, to a consideration of the relationship between God’s Sovereignty and Christian Prayer.

In Jeremiah 10:23 we are told "It is not in a man who walks to direct his steps" (Prov. 16:9); and yet in many of his prayers, man presumes to direct the Lord as to His way, and as to what He ought to do: even implying that if only He had the direction of the affairs of the world and of the Church, He would soon have things very different from what they are. How slow we all are to learn the lesson that we need to be brought down to our knees and humbled into the dust. And this is where the very act of prayer is intended to put us.

"Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1).