Breakfast on the Beach – Entry 11
John 21:12
Prayer changes everything and nothing - all at the same time.
I recently saw the familiar bumper sticker, “Prayer Changes Everything” and of course began to ponder if that is really true. In my opinion, often times prayer changes nothing at all because we are hoping, expecting, and searching for it to change something it was never designed to change – external circumstances. Can God change our circumstances? Sure. Does God change circumstances? Maybe. Is God’s focus on circumstances? Never.
Most of us pray expecting to gain a reaction from God. We pray believing that if done right, by sufficient people with sufficient urging, our prayers will result in significant measurable temporal change; claiming the apparent promise of James 5:16 – the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. We recite the edict to pray without ceasing and murmur of prayer chains and lists, prayer books and teams.
But what does the prayer of a righteous man avail? Wasn’t Jesus a righteous man in the garden before his arrest? Wasn’t he fervent? Wouldn’t the Son of God’s prayer be effective? Didn’t he already know the will of the Father? And yet, the cup didn’t pass. Was God surprised by Christ’s prayer? Did he not realize that Christ the man would desire to not be crucified for all mankind? Did something go wrong? Did it fail because the disciples were asleep?
These questions are of course rhetorical because Christ’s prayer did avail much – it changed Him. Christ wasn’t praying for revelation, he was praying for revitalization. He entered the garden shaken and left the Garden focused on achieving the salvation of whosoever would believe. He entered the Garden desperate and left focused on saving me. I for one am glad that God did not react to Christ’s prayer like I have wished so many times for him to have reacted to mine.
God is not surprised by our prayers. God doesn’t learn from our prayers. God doesn’t judge our prayers. God knows our prayers before they are prayed, he knew them before you were born. God is not reactive; He is perfect, unchanging, complete, and all knowing. He is apart and outside of time and requires no reminders that His children are in need of his care, comfort and gifts. God doesn’t need our prayers, we need our prayers.
A prayer changes nothing when it is uttered to gain a reaction from God. It changes everything when it is uttered with the knowledge that it should and can create a reaction, perhaps even a revolution, within us.
I recently heard Alistair Begg reflect that “We should never rely on prayer. In reality, prayer works nothing. It is God who achieves in answer to prayer. So when we speak about the power of prayer I hope what we mean…is that our faith is not in prayer but our faith is in our Father.”
How true. Prayer changes everything…if by everything we mean the one praying.
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