Welcome to the inaugural post of my project with Pastor Ryan Nunez of Palm Valley Church! We are excited to start with a question on prayer today.
Giving credit where it’s due, I want to note that Pastor Ryan will be providing the majority of the content for these posts. I present him with the questions, edit and organize the content some and then chime in occasionally in the answers based on my personal and professional experiences. Thank you, Pastor Ryan, for joining me in this journey.
We hope you enjoy this post. Our goal is a monthly post, so stay tuned! Ok, without further ado, here we go…
“If God knows all and how everything is going to go and turn out in our lives, why do we pray?”
Pastor Ryan: Let’s start with the statement that God knows everything. He is omniscient or all-knowing. When we think of knowing all things, our minds imagine a timeline that moves in one direction: forward. We see a series of events stretching into eternity past as well as the future. This is how we imagine God knowing all things. He has access to this whole timeline:
“Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.” Isaiah 46:10
In reality, God’s view is actually much bigger than that. Theologian Dr. Wayne Grudem describes it this way: “God fully knows himself and all things actual and possible in one simple and eternal act.”
We understand the “actual” part of that statement pretty well—that’s the timeline. God knows what actually happened and will happen. But God also knows the “possible.” God has given us the ability to choose. Every day is full of decisions: what to wear or eat, where to go, what to say, how to behave. Life is full of choices. God knows all the choices available to us and what the outcomes would be if we made any one of those choices. Beyond that, He knows the outcome of not only how it would affect us but also those around us and the world. The choices we make can alter other people’s choices; and that, too, is part of what God knows. So, God’s all-knowing power looks more like a web than a timeline.
The point is that we really can choose. We are not robots or puppets. We can choose to figure things out on our own. We can choose to worry about the implications and options. We can choose to ask God for help.
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:16
Therefore, we pray because God wants us to turn to him for help. He wants us to invite him into our problems.
“Keep asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. Everyone who seeks finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him?” Matthew 7:7-12
God knows all things far beyond our understanding. He wants us to invite him into our concerns and problems. But in the end, if God knows what is going to happen, does prayer actually change anything?
Yes, it most certainly does. We’ve both seen it change lives and result in miracles. Here’s a story that paints a powerful picture.
A little background…God is using a man named Moses to lead his chosen people, the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt into the land that He had promised their ancestors. Along the way, God is instructing the people through direct conversations with Moses. He is telling them how He wants them to act and be in relation to Him.
Moses has just delivered the Ten Commandments directly from God, the first one being the prohibition of worshiping other gods. Moses goes back up the mountain to speak with God and is gone for 40 days. The Israelites are afraid Moses isn’t coming back and they are worried about their futures. So, they create a gold calf to worship so that they will be protected.
“The Lord told Moses, ‘Quick! Go down the mountain! Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live! They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they have bowed down and sacrificed to it. They are saying, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
“Then the Lord said, ‘I have seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.’ But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. ‘O, Lord! Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand? Why let the Egyptians say, “Their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth? Turn away from your fierce anger. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people! Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven. And I will give them all of this land that I have promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever.’ So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.” Exodus 32:7-14
That’s a crazy story, right? God changed His mind because Moses asked him to! Just so you don’t think I picked a weird translation, check it out in King James: “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” Exodus 32:14
So, God absolutely responds to prayer. It says so right there in the Bible. This doesn’t make God any less perfect: He was perfectly justified in punishing them for their rebellion, and he is perfectly justified in deciding not to.
It doesn’t make him any less powerful. His decision to change his mind was not based on Moses making Him or guilting Him into it. Moses didn’t reveal any new information or logic to God that He didn’t already know. It was a relational decision.
Sometimes, people struggle to pray for themselves. They have no problem praying for others but struggle with asking for what they themselves want, seeing themselves as selfish if they ask for something on their own behalf. We all have the option to pray for others as well as ourselves. Praying for yourself is not selfish. You are a child of God just like everyone else. God has deemed you worthy of life and blessings, just like every other person He created.
God loved Moses and interacted with him relationally. That is how God sees us as well: We are relational beings. When we pray, we are not just going through some religious motion; we are talking to a God who loves us and cares for us and sometimes changes His mind for us. Not always, but sometimes He does.
