Question: So much in the world is awful but God must have some kind of plan, right? He can’t  just be making stuff up as he goes along. So if God already knows everything, if the future is settled, predetermined, why pray at all? 

Answer: I’ve never stood beside a hospital bed and heard a patient say, “Let’s pray because we’re supposed to.”

No one says, “Let’s pray so we can deepen our spiritual awareness.”

When life is hanging in the balance, when test results haven’t come back, when the phone rings in the middle of the night, people pray because it might work! People treat prayer like it matters. But when you ask people of prayer today, “If God already knows everything, why pray?” you’ll often hear answers like:

• We pray because we’re told to
• We pray to follow Jesus’ example
• We pray because it comforts us

None of these are false, they’re just too small. When you open your Bible, you see that’s not how prayer is portrayed. Scripture speaks of prayer as something that intervenes, that pleads, that stands in the gap, that changes outcomes. Prayer changes things! 

The truth is, all of life is not predetermined. In fact, the Bible says that lots of what we experience in life is not on the basis of some divine decree. This notion, called “determinism,” reduces prayer to theater.  

Whatever God knew and decided in eternity, he knew and decided in consideration of what people actually did. In other words, God’s eternal knowledge is not detached from what happens in history. God takes our prayers into account. God doesn’t merely know outcomes – he knows real participation, real interaction. Because he is outside of time and space, he is able to include our prayers into his plan. 

For example, when the Israelites had waited at the bottom of Mt. Sinai for a long time, they decided they needed a new god. Nothing makes God madder faster than idolatry.  

“So he [God] declared he would destroy them. But Moses, his chosen one, stepped between the LORD and the people. He begged him to turn from his anger and not destroy them.” Psalm 106:23 

There are many examples of prayer changing things. So pray and don’t give up! God hears you!  

Pastor Jon Karn
Light on the Corner Church
https://www.lightonthecorner.org/