This morning in my Facebook news feed I saw a post by an atheist group page which contained the following quote.

Prayer is an act of doubt, not of faith. If you really trusted God’s plan you would have no need to pray about anything.

There is actually quite a bit going wrong logically with this objection; for instance, the fact that the God of the Bible is different than you would expect, or does things you don’t understand is no real basis for unbelief. There’s a nugget of wisdom in this for believers; Tim Keller recently said that if the God you believe in always agrees with you, it’s likely not God but an idealized version of yourself that you are really worshiping. It is always curious to me when people object to the God of the Bible on the basis of the fact that they insist the universe operates based on their own personal suppositions.

I actually take great comfort in the fact that God is not as I would have imagined Him. I remember reading C.S. Lewis say once, “The truth is always different than we would have guessed. I believe in Christianity because it’s a religion you never would have guessed.” It tells me it’s not a man’s invention, because it goes totally contrary to my own inclinations and my own nature. A figment of human imagination usually tells us what we want, or otherwise reflects a fear….the Christian message does something completely different.

But either way, I think this person’s objection is not total foolishness. And I think it is necessary for us believers to grapple with the tension he brings up. Our Bible says that God is totally sovereign and in control of all things, yet we are told (James 4:2) we do not have because we do not ask.

What, then, is really the point of praying to a God who is in control of all things, whose will is perfect, whose will cannot be thwarted, and has our best interest at heart? Why “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) to the God who “changes times and seasons; [who] sets up kings and deposes them,” (Daniel 2:21) and who cares for us so deeply that “the very hairs of [our] head are all numbered” (Luke 12:6-7), and who “in all things…works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28)?

Rather than saying “Well this doesn’t make sense to me, so I’m just going to chuck it,” let’s take the advice of the Romance poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “When we meet an apparent error in a good author, we must presume ourselves to be ignorant of his understanding until we are certain we understand his ignorance.” Let’s give God and the Bible the benefit of the doubt and look for His reasoning.

If God is sovereign and in control, why tell us to petition Him?

Let’s start with this: We are created in the image and likeness of God, and perhaps that means something far deeper and more significant than we can imagine.

For those of the unbelieving persuasion, finding the ultimate meaning of life in blind genetic replication and evolution, humans are simply highly developed primates whose lives hold no more significance than a slug’s except to ourselves. In the grand scheme of things, we matter very little. But when we approach the biblical account of creation, God’s intent in creating mankind was to create us in His image and likeness, that is, in a way no other being was created. We are, by definition, set apart as totally different from animals, even if we are made from the same materials. Therefore, humans and God have a likeness not shared by animals; there can exist a close fellowship between humans and God that exists nowhere else.

God created mankind as vice regents of His kingdom on the earth. To be put in charge of making the earth productive is a divine role. Humans were created and invited to participate in God’s own creative activities. God is sovereign over creation, but has invited one type of His creatures to participate in His sovereign activities. Humans were made to participate in God’s will, carrying it out, completing it, furthering it. This is an almost unthinkable privilege! John Piper, reflecting on this, said that in prayer, “God is extending His sovereignty to include our own free will to bring into existence things that would not otherwise exist apart from our human will.”

God, the all-powerful Sovereign, extends His will to include yours…not to change His necessarily, not to decide against what He has already decided, but to participate in His work. Theologian Bruce Ware calls this being “shareful.” God knows His work is so good and so wonderful that He shares it with us. He allows us the privilege of participating in the divine will.

I should add in here a brief warning: I am not at all suggesting that we “speak things into existence,” as is the teaching of those who are part of what’s known as the Word of Faith movement. This is a central tenet of the prosperity gospel, that brand of Christian “theology” that says if we have faith God will give us health, prosperity, good relationships, etc. This is not biblical, and does not reflect a life lived according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a man who endured unthinkable suffering. 

Therefore, when you pray, you are by definition exercising faith in God.  It is not an act of doubt, but an act of faith. You believe that God has extended this privilege to you, and therefore you act on it. You petition God to further His own glory and fame in the earth (furthering the glory of God in the world is the main focus of the “Lord’s Prayer,” after all), to open the eyes of unbelievers, to heal the sick, to change circumstances, to request guidance, to pour out our complains and struggles to God.

God doesn’t tell us to pray as an exercise in faith just for the sake of exercising faith, but to allow us to participate in His own work for our benefit and blessing. Your prayers, in faith, truly do have eternal consequences as part of God’s work in the world.

Here’s the way I like to illustrate prayer in faith: If you needed to talk to someone at their house, but you had doubts about them being home or not, you might knock once on the door and then walk away. But if you truly believed they were inside their house, you would beat on the door until they answered, especially if you really needed them. This is why, in Luke 18, in the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus advocates for persistent prayer. The point is not that we have to bug God incessantly to get Him to pay attention, but that if we truly believe we will persist in our prayer. This is why in Jesus’ last line of the parable, the part where the parable’s lesson is normally revealed, He says “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Jesus defines persistent prayer as faith.

Your prayers matter. God is not required to bend His will to yours, but you are absolutely invited to participate in God’s will and work, and the more you pray and read the Scriptures the more you will know Him, and the more your will and God’s will become meshed together and you and He work for the same things.

What an amazing God.