After the first excitement of conversion, the growing Christian learns some doctrine and then asks some questions. One question often asked is this: ‘If God knows and plans everything, what is the point of praying?’ To put that question a different way: ‘If God is sovereign - why pray?’ To answer that question we must first ask two other questions: ‘What is God’s sovereignty?’ and ‘What is prayer?’

What is God’s sovereignty?

Let me give you my own simple definition: God rules, therefore he knows and plans everything. This means that he knows what we will pray about even before we ask. He also knows what we need better than we do. When we pray he has already planned the answer to our prayer - it may not be the answer we want! He knows how our prayer fits in with his plans for our life, our family, our church - and even his plans for the whole world. God sees how our life - and our prayers - fit into his plans which stretch from eternity past into eternity future. The sovereign God knows at a glance all events, past, present and future. He rules and therefore he has chosen the saved and planned that Christ should die for them - for them alone - on the cross. None can snatch his elect from his hands; not one of them will be missing from heaven.

To know that God rules brings comfort to the Christian – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Nothing happens by ‘luck’ or ‘chance’ but is planned by the King who is our heavenly Father!

Biblical statements of God’s sovereignty are found in many Scriptures, for example, Ephesians 1:11 - In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will – and Romans 8:28-30 and Romans 9.

It is not easy to define prayer in a few words! Perhaps Psalm 62:8 may help: Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. We may say that prayer is to ‘pour out your hearts’ to God; to do this we need confidence that he will hear us – this confidence is expressed in the word ‘trust’. As we pray we are to submit to the will of the sovereign God.

So then, we come to the question we started with. If God is sovereign - why pray? Let me offer five reasons why we should pray to the sovereign God.

Reason 1: Because God commands us to pray. He says, through his servant Paul, Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful (Colossians 4:2) - this is one of many Scriptures we could quote. The prayerless Christian is a disobedient Christian. Though, we do not understand how our prayers fulfil God’s will, it is our duty - and ought to be our delight - to pray.

Wayne Grudem helpfully comments: ‘Prayer is not made so that God can find out what we need ... God wants us to pray because prayer expresses our trust in God and is a means whereby our trust in him can increase. In fact, perhaps the primary emphasis of the Bible’s teaching on prayer is that we pray with faith, which means trust or dependence on God’.

Someone may ask ‘But what about those passages in the Bible where God appears to change his mind because of prayer?’ The sovereign God had already planned what eventually took place! Such a passage is Exodus 32:9-14. God says, after the incident of the golden calf, I will destroy the Israelites. Moses pleads with God to spare his chosen people, Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened (Exodus 32:9). Has God changed his mind? Not at all! So why go through an apparent charade of threatening destruction and Moses beseeching God to spare his rebellious people? It was through this experience that Moses and the Israelites were taught that God is both holy and gracious (Exodus 34:6-7).