Every year, the English Presbytery organises a co-workers retreat in JB, during which we hear from God’s word and interact with fellow workers. During the retreat last year one such interaction resonated with me. A senior pastor I was speaking with observed that some church activities need little encouragement – especially those centred on learning God’s Word and fellowship. Others, however, require much more persuasion, most notably those involving prayer.[1]
I resonated with his comment not just as a pastor but as a congregation member.
Most of us are happy to spend time in fellowship.
Many of us see the need for being rooted in the Scriptures.
But when it comes to prayer, we struggle to find the motivation and the consistency.
Usually, this personal struggle is met with a mixture of guilt and nonchalance.
We may be led to conclude, “Maybe it’s just me. I’m just a poor Christian. Prayer seems to come easily for others.” In reality though, none of us find prayer easy: motivation is hard to find and consistency is hard to sustain. Why is this the case?
Another conversation with another pastor comes to mind.
He shared that prayer meetings in his church were usually sparsely attended. Yet on one occasion, attendance surged. Why? As it turns out, in the days before that meeting, members had received a letter slandering the senior pastor and sowing disunity. Confronted with crisis and the urgent need to pray for the church’s future, the congregation turned up in force. Crisis drove the church to cry out to God.
Perhaps, then, one key reason we don’t turn to God in intercession is that we don’t feel a compelling need.
But why don’t we feel a compelling need?
We may approach this question from many angles but often, what we feel (or fail to feel) is shaped by what we believe about God.
In what follows in this perspective and the next (Part 3 next week), I will reflect on how our distorted beliefs about God and about evil, respectively, quietly sap our desire for prayer. Because these distortions are often subtle and difficult to diagnose, I hope these two perspectives will help us see them more clearly.
God’s Sovereignty and Our Prayers
One of the core convictions of our Presbyterian and Reformed tradition, shared by the wider Christian church, is that God is sovereign – he holds the future in his hands. Yet what does that actually mean? How exactly does God shape events of the future? And what role do we play in this shaping of the future? Christians across history have wrestled with this question. While we should be humble before the mystery of God’s ways, Scripture and the Christian tradition also help us see that some ways of thinking about God’s sovereignty simply will not do.
One understanding of God’s sovereignty that must be rejected is the idea that prayer is ultimately unnecessary or ineffective – that it changes nothing in the world and affects only the person praying. This way of thinking gained prominence in modern theology through figures like Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), often regarded as the father of modern liberal theology. Uncomfortable with miracles and the supernatural, Schleiermacher concluded that prayer does not alter events or outcomes but serves only to shape the inner life of the believer. In this view, prayer has purely “internal” effects.
Even if the name Schleiermacher is unfamiliar to us, the way he thought about prayer may feel surprisingly familiar. Consider the popular slogan: prayer doesn’t change things, it changes the person praying. Doesn’t it ring true? Doesn’t it teach us to yield to God’s will rather than insist on ours? Surely that must be a good thing?
Christian as it sounds, such an understanding of prayer goes against the grain of the Christian Scripture and it most certainly goes against the example of Christ.
To be sure, prayer does indeed shape us to yield to God.
But… it is more than that.
Yes, Jesus does indeed pray not my will but yours be done.
But… that’s not his only word on prayer.
Consider some of Jesus’ other teachings on prayer:
After the Transfiguration, Jesus finds his disciples unable to exorcise a demon – so what does He say? Does He say: so be it, this is God’s will?
No! Rather, Jesus says, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” (Mark 9:14-29)
Implying that it was only through prayer that he drove out the demon.
Prayer matters.
Before the Passion, Jesus tells Peter: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail (Luke 22:31-32).
Implying that it is only through prayer that Peter’s faith survives.
Prayer matters.
It may seem from these instances that prayer ‘works’ only because it is Jesus, the Son of God, praying. We may think that prayer doesn’t change anything if we are the ones praying.[2]
But consider how Jesus teaches us to pray:
Jesus said: Ask, and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7–8).
Jesus taught in parables (Friend at Midnight – Luke 11:5–10 and Persistent Widow – Luke 18:1–8) that persistent prayer drives God to act.
Prayer matters.
In teaching this, Jesus echoes the Old Testament pattern in which God’s people pray in desperation and God answers.
Moses intercedes and the LORD relents from disaster (Exodus 32:9–14);
Hannah prays in deep anguish and the LORD opens her womb (1 Samuel 1:10–20);
Hezekiah prays, and God adds fifteen years to his life (2 Kings 20:1–6).
Prayer, offered from many different places, is met by the same responsive God.
All this to say, prayer matters and it doesn’t just matter for our spiritual formation. It matters more than that.
Conclusion
The brightest theological minds may offer us myriad ways in which God’s sovereignty are compatible with the efficacy of our prayers – but we don’t need to be brilliant to affirm the plain witness of Scripture: prayer matters – it doesn’t just change the pray-er.
This perspective began with the Singlish rhetorical question:
If God is sovereign, pray for what?!
The assumption behind it is clear: if God has already determined how things will turn out, then prayer must make no real difference.
But the question can just as easily be turned on its head:
If God is NOT sovereign, pray for what?! [3]
[1] He also mentioned evangelism.
[2] Much more ought to be said about how our prayers are in reality a participation in Jesus’s high priestly ministry. That is why we pray ‘in Jesus’ name’. But this is another topic for another time.
[3] When I was 80% done with the writing of this perspective, I was met with the heart breaking news that one of our sisters passed away suddenly. The pastoral team and many others prayed fervently that she will be healed. Yet God did not grant us our request – I really wished that He did. At face value, this seems to fly in the face of everything that has been written here, that prayer, in fact, doesn’t matter. But for those of us who have considered these things for a while, who have walked with our Lord for many years, such a simplistic conclusion just doesn’t suffice. Unanswered prayer is an issue far more complex than that. If you would like to reflect on this more fully, consider this perspective.
