If God’s purpose or will for your life can’t be thwarted, why pray? It’s a fair question, one you may have asked yourself.  

   In a recent women’s Sunday School class, we were studying Acts 3 in which Peter healed a beggar who had been lame for over forty years. While we were processing this chapter, a hand shot up. 

   “If God already has a plan for your life, why pray?” asked one of my devoted women. She told the class that her friend’s husband had been stricken with a serious illness. She, along with many other family and friends, were praying for his healing. “But if God is going to do what He plans to do anyway, why pray if we can’t change His mind?” In other words, if our pleas for healing are filtered through God’s will, why not adopt a fatalistic view about life? Why not accept that outcomes are out of our control? 

   All eyes in the classroom were now fixed on me, which is what typically happens when the hard questions come! I offered what I thought was an adequate answer.

   “We pray to build an intimate relationship with God and to show our dependence on Him.” Their faces dropped. My answer clearly did not satisfy them.

   Many of these ladies know the Bible well, including the one who asked the question.

   “Yes, I know that…” she said. I could hear the frustration and resignation in her voice. Looking around the room, I could see in some of the faces that I might as well have fed them castor oil.  

   Do you identify with their reaction? I do. As I headed home after class, I found myself asking, “Why is developing a deeper walk with God a dissatisfying answer?” When I got honest with myself, it wasn’t the answer I would have wanted to hear either, even though I believe my answer to be true. What kind of relationship do we have with God if there’s not the same kind of “give and take” we experience in our earthly relationships? Over the next few days, I struggled to reconcile the tensions around the purpose of prayer. 

   On the surface, I could see how God’s Word might appear to communicate conflicting messages. On the one hand, I thought of several passages from Scripture that lead me to believe we can change God’s mind. Jesus clearly communicates that believers with faith can move a mountain. He said in Matt 17:21, “Nothing will be impossible for you.” We can express our faith through prayer. In John 14:12-14, Jesus tells us that we will do “even greater things” because He will go to the Father as we ask for things in His name and will do it. James 5:16 says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” And Jesus says in Matt 18:19, “Again, I tell you that if two of you agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” I believe wholeheartedly that there is power in prayer and that I can change the world because of it.  

   On the other hand, the Bible speaks clearly about God’s will. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt 6:9-10) His will has already been pre-established in heaven. So when we pray, our hearts need to be re-calibrated daily with God’s Will. In Isa 14:26-27 we read, “This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him?” Isa 46:10-11 says, “I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do.” Prov 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.”  

   I have always believed in the power of prayer. I believe that when I go to my Father and pray for someone’s healing, for example, I can change God’s mind such that He will grant my request, especially when I’m praying in agreement with other believers. The belief that I can change His mind is not unfounded. Exodus 32 is an account in which God told Moses He intended to destroy the Israelites. Moses interceded for them by asking God not to destroy them, and God honored Moses’s request. It appeared Moses changed God’s mind.  

   2 Kings 20:1-11 records a story of Hezekiah, a king who became ill and was at the point of death. The Lord sent His prophet Isaiah to tell Hezekiah to “get his house in order because you’re going to die.” Hezekiah appealed to the Lord. “Remember how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” The Lord heard his prayer and told Hezekiah, “I will heal you. I will add fifteen years to your life.”  

   There is also the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8. Jesus used this parable to illustrate that we should always pray and not give up. The widow appeared continually before a judge with a plea for justice against her adversary. But the judge had no regard for God or people. The judge kept refusing for some time until she started wearing him out! He was tired of being bothered by her, so to keep her from re-appearing in his courtroom, he granted her plea. Her persistence caused the judge to change his mind. 

   As I was working through this tension between the power of prayer and God’s will, it occurred to me to view prayer from a different vantage point. Have you thought about why Jesus spent so much time in prayer with our Father? After all, Jesus was God in human flesh. Why do you think Jesus often removed Himself from the crowds or His disciples to be alone with God? He obviously had the power to change anything He wanted to and demonstrated this often. Jesus gives us some clues. Jesus is speaking to His disciples in John 14:10. “The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work.” Jesus repeats this idea while praying to His Father in John 17:8, “For I gave them (the disciples) the words you gave me and they accepted them.” I picture Jesus praying daily to seek His Father’s will. He desired to be fully yielded to His Father in all that He said and did during His earthly ministry.  

   God’s Word teaches us to do the same. We need to seek the will of God daily through prayer. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane praying continually to His Father. “He was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matt 26:38) before facing His crucifixion. Jesus knew all along that the plan was for Him to die on the cross as the sacrificial lamb for all mankind. Yet He still prayed. “My Father, if you are willing, may this cup be taken from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”  

   In Christian circles we typically focus on the last part of Jesus’s request: “yet not my will, but yours be done.” As I re-read this passage, I understood this verse from a whole new vantage point! The phrase, “if you are willing,” jumped out at me, giving this verse an interesting nuance. 

   Jesus prayed hoping God would change His mind, which brings me comfort. If Jesus thought He could change God’s mind, then there’s hope for all of us! But He also modeled that given a choice between what He wanted and what His Father wanted, Jesus wanted God’s will to be done. Let me ask you another question. Where would we be if God had changed His mind when Jesus asked to bypass the cross? We would still be living in spiritual darkness destined to be separated from God for eternity. Can you imagine that?! It is sobering and humbling to know that our Father declined Jesus’s request in favor of redeeming us. God knows when and when not to change His mind.  

   Since God’s purposes can’t be thwarted, it appears that our prayers will always be answered in the context of His will for each of us. He knows before we ask Him what is in our best interest. This is why Jeremiah 29:11 is my life verse: “For I know the plans that I have for you. They are plans to profit you and not to harm you, but to give you a hope and a future.” No matter what He allows to happen in my life, I trust that it ultimately profits me and positively impacts His Kingdom. No matter what I ask of God, I know I can trust Him completely to answer my prayers knowing what is in my best interest. My hope and my future have already been predetermined, and He knows when to grant requests or not. He’s got my back at all times. 

   I don’t know whether we change God’s mind through prayer. I can say that I have seen powerful results come from fervent and persistent prayers, which leads me to believe we can. But I will never know on this side of heaven if the results were already willed by God before I put my prayer requests before Him. That doesn’t discourage me. I am going to keep praying as if I can change His mind. No matter what, I am growing closer to God through prayer, which is the real blessing. 

   In the end, God wants us to seek Him and His will daily. He wants us to be in complete unity with Him. We can’t help but learn and love the heart of God as we spend more time with Him through prayer. As I was trying to figure out how to conclude my post, I serendipitously came across this Facebook post by Donald Miller, the Christian author: “What if your future was not whatever you wanted it to be and not whatever Jesus wanted it to be, but whatever you and Jesus wanted it to be?”  

   I was struck by this statement. I believe it melts away the debate over whether we can change the mind of God through prayer. It moves us away from a power struggle with God to have our own way and leads us into the presence of God to know Him more. For the more we spend time with Him in prayer, the more we will want what He wants. We will love Him so deeply that whatever is important to Him will be important to us. It wouldn’t occur to us to attempt to change His mind. We would experience complete unity, which is what Jesus prayed for us in John 17:23. 

   Now that tastes like honey, not castor oil. 

   I would love to hear your thoughts or reactions. Do you believe you can change God’s mind? 

Blessings,

Lee Ann