Since God always gets his way....why pray?

Question

Seems to me that it doesnt matter what we pray for.....
A job, a car, endurance, patience, accpetance, etc, God has the job of answering that prayer....it either comes to pass or not depending on Gods will.....since our prayers cannot influence Gods decision, why bother praying?


[This one has been eating at me for a while.....]

Answer 1

I'm not sure I'll answer this as tactfully as it deserves to be. But I felt compelled to answer this question. Furthermore, I found it intriguing that I opened my Bible to 1 John 5, which tackles the majority of what I feel is the right answer...

In continuation of the above. 1 John 5:14-15 talks about praying in accordance with God's will. Depending on your bible version (mine is NLT), the verses will read "(14)And we can be confident that He will listen to us whenever we ask Him for anything in line with His will. (15)And if we know He is listening when we make our requests, we can be sure that He will give us what we ask for."
Now, this does not mean that we'll get anything we ask for. (James 4:3 talks about the importance of praying with the right motives). We kind of have to break it down a bit to get to the root....

Verse 14 is specific about praying in accordance with His will - God wants to bless us. So often, for so many reasons, we ourselves get in the way of that. We don't give God room to work in our hearts and lives.
Leviticus 26:35 speaks of God blessing those who obey Him. Prayer is one way to be obedient to God, to rely on God. Prayer is significant of obeying Him, thus it is us allowing God to bless us in accordance to His will.
Matthew 6:33 says God blesses us when we seek to please Him. To pray to God is to seek Him. Praying to God pleases Him because we are turning to Him. When you seek God's counsel or help, you are telling God you need Him. Again, we give God the ability here to bless us the way He wants to. Because we have removed ourselves as an obstacle.
Further, Psalm 24:36 says we are blessed when we worship God. Prayer is absolutely a way to worship God.
The thing to remember about all this, is that it is not the importance of the words you say, but what's in your heart. God can translate through our awkward words because He sees what's in our hearts. The last sentence of Luke 6:45 says, "... whatever is in your heart determines what you say."
Going back to what I said about praying in accordance with God's will: If we pray in our accordance with OUR will, we're telling God it doesn't matter what He wants for us, or what blessings He wants to give us. We telling God that what we want is what's best for us. And that simply just does not worship, praise, acknowledge, or even show our love for God.

Verse 15 says, "And if we know He is listening when we make our requests, we can be sure that He will give us what we ask for."
Again, this does not mean we get what we want. This verse signifies the importance of Faith. Faith is another reason we pray. It falls in line with the other items mentioned above. If we pray to God, seeking His will, we are vividly expressing our Faith in Him and submitting our will before Him. This is also necessary for God to bless us the way He wants to. What is prayer without faith? This stems from the first words, "And if we KNOW He is listening..." This signifies prayer without doubt (see James 1:6 on this). If we doubt in our prayer, than we obviously aren't truly relying on God, or being obedient.

To start wrapping up (maybe), we are obviously called to pray by the Bible, which is God's word. So you could simplify one angle and say, we pray because God wants us to or commands us to. (Psalm 25:4-7 talks about asking God for guidance).
On top of that, we are called to be 'Christ-like' in our walk with the Lord. Matthew 6:9-13 shows Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray. As simple as it sounds, if Jesus prayed, and we're to be like Christ, then we should pray. Further, Jesus taught his disciples to pray because he wanted the right way to pray to be taught to what would become the church.

In final, we pray because God wants us to tell Him what's on our minds. Even though He sees and understands our situations better than we do, He still wants to hear from us in our own words (hearts).
Faith is the secret of prevailing prayer, which moves the heart of God.

Answer 2

This made me chortle. i do no longer pray to some thing i do no longer have confidence in,and that i in no way recalled praying to recover from some thing. If some thing undesirable takes place, I settle for that it got here approximately and be conscious of that issues gets greater effectual in time (because of the fact time has that pesky habit to repair our issues). So if the question replaced into, "how come once you pray to time,you will constantly get greater effectual",then i might have a distinctive answer. Plus, Prayer is an phantasm. that's often genuine (specific,no,possibly) it is basically like the fortunate horseshoe,prayer beads and magic 8 ball. Step a million) Pray to your God for some thing. something in any respect,yet no longer something like "that the solar will upward push and set" or something that's completed via nature. some thing like an unexpected advance at artwork,or a lotto or scratch off cost tag win interior the subsequent 2 weeks. Then wait. Step 2) Pray to an merchandise around your place for a prayer,further to the single above. Then wait. Step 3) unsure what to wish for? Pray to God to treatment somebody with an ailment like maximum cancers. God's all-effectual,so curing maximum cancers should not be a situation. opportunities are high the outcomes would be an identical. it is going to the two happen or no longer. Prayer is bullshit.

Answer 3

We pray first out of gratitude and thanksgiving for the many blessings God grants us each day, those things we take for granted and expect to be there...water, electricity, phone, t.v., pc/etc...and because IF we believe the word of God...we are instructed to pray..we have not because we ask not...if we pray for ANYTHING, asking in the correct manner, and believing..it shall come to pass. His word uses these illustration...if one of our children asks us for a piece of bread, are we going to give them a stone? How much more that the heavenly father loves us and wants to give unto us. The majority of the time I feel that we pray not out of a need, but greed...Just because God doesn*t answer your prayer with a yes right away doesn*t mean the answer is necessarily a NO. God*s time isn*t our time. Prayer ISN*T only for asking things of God...it*s communicating your thoughts, feelings, doubts, fears, cares, and thankfulness..and that is why we should never stop praying.

Answer 4

Because God commands us to do so. Prayer is about you submitting to God showing him that you put aside your pride and chooses to obey his will. Your right God won't do anything for you if its not according to his will, but remember he is a God of love and he will do anything for his creation. BUT WE MUST ASK FIRST, for him to act in our lives( even to help us) would do damage against our free will. Also, remember that you are a mere mortal who cannot fathom the mind of God and thus cannot be aware of what his will is....so pray for whatever you think you neeed and perhaps you will get it

Maybe if you bugg God enough he might just give it to you just to make you be quiet for a minute or to. : )

Answer 5

James 5:14–15 Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up.

One example of the power of prayer.

Cheers :-)

Answer 6

Because of his great mercy.

Daniel 9:18 O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.

King James bible

The word of God will answer you if you trust in the Lord with all your heart. Proverbs 3:5-6

Answer 7

Email me. I understand your quandry, but it is a LONG answer. I will tell you what prayer can do. If you'd like, use my profile link.

The short, God has already decided everything we will ever have to contemplate.

Answer 8

I don't believe in god but even religions that have no deity believe that the influence of prayer on people is positive .

Answer 9

i had a problem with that too, and yet prayer seems to work, I tend to think now that God's plans are pretty vague and he's quite willing to cooperate with your plans.

Answer 10

This is a hard thing to comprehend. God is supposed to be all knowing, yet he asked Adam where he had been. God either plays mind games or he is not all knowing! (genesis 3)