DAY 3
CHALLENGE
“Why should we bother praying? If God is all-knowing, he knows what we need, and we can’t change his mind because he’s changeless.”
DEFENSE
Prayer is not about giving God information or changing his mind. It is an activity he wants us to do because it draws us out of ourselves and builds relationships—with him and our fellow human beings. That’s why he rewards it.
Jesus made the point that prayer is not about giving God information: “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt. 6:8). The reason God wants us to pray is that it keeps us from closing in on ourselves. He wants us to have a relationship with him—to think about him, to care about pleasing him, to love him. Humans build relationships by talking, and so God rewards us when we talk to him and relate to him in the ways we are able. He also wants us to care about one another and not to think exclusively about our own needs. Thus
he rewards it when we pray for others.
This way, the people of God are built up through love and mutual
concern. When we pray, we are drawn out of ourselves to care both about God and about our neighbor.
Because God already knows what we need, praying is not some- thing that helps him. It helps us. It rescues us from thoughtlessness, and makes us better, more loving people.
It also does not change God’s mind. It’s true that he is outside of time and changeless, but this does not prevent him from knowing the prayers that we offer to him at particular moments in time and rewarding them.
The fact that God is changeless but gives gifts to those in time was noted by James: “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).
TIP
Notice how, by praying to God and on behalf of others, we learn to care about both, thus helping us fulfill the two great commandments: love of God and love of neighbor (Mark 12:28–34).