Why Should Christians Pray? Part One - What is Prayer?

Over the next couple of weeks, I want us to take a look at prayer, answering the question: "If God is immutable and omniscient, then why should Christians even bother to pray?" Today's post will be part one in a four-part series titled, Why Should Christians Pray?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why Should Christians Pray?

If God is immutable and omniscient, then why should Christians even bother to pray? If God is immutable, then it would seem that prayer can’t change His mind about what He’s going to do. If God is omniscient, then He already knows what’s going on – why bother telling Him? God's immutability and omniscience are not arguments against prayer, but they help to answer the question, "Why should Christians pray?" In order to understand why Christians should pray, a biblical definition of prayer and an understanding of what it means for God to be immutable and omniscient must be established.

What is Prayer?

Ask any five people for a definition of prayer, and they will most likely have five different ideas of what prayer is: petition, communication [with God], listening, “putting my cares, hopes, [and] dreams in the hands of the Most High,” even “folding your hands and talking to God every day”[1]. Rodney Stark, a sociology professor at Baylor University, said, “[Prayer is] one of the most common and unacknowledged activities on the planet”[2]. For Christians, prayer is a central activity in everyday life, but what is prayer?

The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible[3] lists more than twenty Greek or Hebrew words that have been translated into over 540 forms of the word pray in the King James Version. In Psalm 5.2, the word translated pray is a verb meaning “to pray, intervene, mediate, judge” (H6419). Pray is translated to mean beseech in Jonah 4.2 (H577). Other times, pray has a connotation of supplication (G4336), worship (G4335), or petition (G1189).

According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies”[4]. In prayer, individuals come to God, yielding their will to His will, acknowledging their dependence on Him. The expression of the believer’s dependence upon Christ is realized in prayer[5].

In prayer, believers admit their dependence on the Holy Spirit for guidance as they seek to know and do God’s will. The believer’s response to God as he relies on the Spirit of God to guide him comes through prayer. Prayer includes praise through the Spirit, thanksgiving for the work of the Spirit, confession of failure to obey and trust the Spirit, and petition for the help of the Spirit[6]. Through prayer, humans express their trust in the Holy Spirit to guide them.

In the simplest sense, prayer is nothing more than having a conversation with God[7]. Prayer is “an expression of a Christian’s unbroken relationship with the Father”[8]. Prayer is how individuals communicate with God – how they talk to Him about what they’re thinking, feeling, desiring, experiencing, etc. What a person prays reveals the spiritual condition of his heart[9], revealing the state of his present relationship with God.

            Prayer is not a laundry list of wants and desires offered up to God. The object of prayer is not to have one’s will done in heaven, but petitioning for God’s will to be done on earth (Matthew 6.10). O. Hallesby said that prayer is “an attitude of our hearts toward God… When we petition God in prayer, we come to Christ and tell Him what we and those for whom we pray are lacking. It is opening up our needy lives to Him”[10]. Prayer is admittance of one’s need of and dependence on God. It is a humbling of one’s self before Him, allowing Him to work His will in one’s life, molding one’s will to His.

            Prayer is living life in awareness of and communication with God. Burke encourages his readers to talk with God about whatever they are thinking about. Whatever believers spend time thinking about is what is most important to them, and that’s where God wants to do life with them[11]. Prayer is a means of including God in the intimate details of one’s life.

Prayer encompasses all of these areas and more, but most simply, prayer is expressing one’s thoughts and feelings to God. Having this biblical understanding of what prayer is establishes a foundation for reconciling God’s immutability and omniscience with prayer.
(To be continued...)

---

[1] Twitter, personal communication, September 29, 2010

[2] qtd. by Szegedy-Maszak & Hsu: Szegedy-Maszak, Marianne & Hsu, Caroline. (2004). How we talk to God. U.S. News & World Report, 137(22), 55-62. Retrieved from EBSCO database. (15324184)

[3] Strong, James. (2001) The New Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[4] Westminster Shorter Catechism. Retrieved from: http://www.reformed.org/documents/WSC.html

[5] p.137: Bridges, Jerry. (1994). The Discipline of Grace. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

[6] p.148: Piper, John. (2004) When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

[7] p. 184: Willard, Dallas. (1988). The Spirit of the Disciplines. New York, NY: HarperOne.

[8] p. 67: Whitney, Donald S. (1991). Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

[9] p.139: Piper, John. (2004) When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

[10] qtd. by Thrasher, p.19: Thrasher, Bill. (2003). A Journey to Victorious Praying. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.

[11] p. 67: Burke, John. (2008). Soul Revolution. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.