Doctrine 2

Assignment: choose one question.

Why should I bother praying when God has already determined what will happen?

A Christian is someone who has God as the Father. As a child of God, a Christian, in his adoption to be one, enjoys the privileges that come as a result of being God’s child. One of these is that through prayers, we can present our requests to Him. Even though God is sovereign, and thus has all things pre-determined according to His foreknowledge, prayer still forms an essential part in the life of a Christian.

As His child, God has His best interests in our life, and therefore through prayer, it teaches that we learn to surrender our life to Him, and be totally dependable on Him. Jesus Himself prayed to God in the Gethsemane that the cup would be taken away from Him, yet, very certainly, Jesus knew that sole His mission was to carry His Cross and do the Father’s will (Mark 14:36). Surely, God had determined that Jesus would be crucified. Jesus’ prayer didn’t change God’s mind, nor did it mean that His prayer had been ignored, since the course of the event that followed told us otherwise. However, we know that the Cross is in fact Jesus’ glory, for through it, goodness comes as a result, as had already been perfectly planned by the Father who loves His Son, and those whom He will bring into the conformity of His Son. Here, we learn that prayer allows ourselves to be changed inwardly, and let God be God and also be glorified by submitting our will to Him and surrendering things into His hand. We can trust God, and our prayers actually confirm our trust in Him.

Daniel was an example of a man who always prayed to God. Even though Daniel knew that His God was indeed powerful to deliver him from time to time, he never slacked in praying to acknowledge of His power, after which he would humbly asked for God’s helps. Daniel in his many prayers to God in the midst of all the difficulties he faced teach us that God is not controlled by men, yet at the same time, he exercised the confidence that God would listen to his pleas and actually deliver him. God could choose that he would be slain instead, along with the other wise men of Babylon, who did not manage to interpret the dreams of King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2:16-18), but God answered his prayers.

Finally, we can rightly say that since we belong to God, His desire is that we seek Him diligently. Not only does He provide us with the guidance that we so need desperately in this fallen world, but also that our fellowship with the Father through Christ, in one way or another, actually finds its realization in the intimacy of the communication that we can have with Him through our prayers. As Jesus was about to leave His disciples, He comforted them of the coming Counselor. He also commanded that they pray to the Father, so as they remain in Jesus and His word, whatever that they wished, would be given them (John 15:7). Many times, the Lord also commanded us to pray to the Father. And as we listen and remain in Him, God’s word will teach us to prayer in accordance to His will, and thus, enable us to engage in the fellowship with our triune God.