The Purpose of Prayer

Why do we pray? Think about it for a few seconds befoer answering. I have to confess that too many of my prayers aer centered around getting something. It may be philanthropic in nature (for someone's health or for them to come to know Christ), but it is ultimately to get something. I think that completely misses the point. God knows all of our needs before we ask. If the sole purpose of prayer were to get things from God, why wouldn't He just give them to us before we ask? Because of His love, God wants to bless us beyond anything we could imagine, so its not that God doesn't want to give us His blessings. Also, why wouldn't God give them to us the first time we asked?

The reason that we pray is to commune with God and in doing so become more like Him. In asking for something, we recognize that God is the Provider and we need Him. When we pray something repeatedly it isn't that we need more numbers to convince God that we are really honest in our desires. He can see our heart. Nor can we impress God when we get other people to pray with us. Its like leadership, God doesn't put us in leadership because of good things that we can do for Him. Surely He could do them without us if He wanted to, and then there would be no chance of someone messing things up. He selects us because there are things He wants to do through us and in us. Its the same with prayer. God doesn't answer our prayers because we've impressed Him, but because He wants to see us changed.

When Moses prayed to God to not destroy Israel, did God change his mind? No. God does not change. If He did, He would be different from one instant to the next and would be bound by time. But since we know God created time and is not bound by it, He cannot change. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So if God didn't change because of Moses' prayer, what did change? It was Moses who changed relative to God and so he saw a different facet of God (him and all the Israelites who were within earshot).

So when we ask people to pray for us, it is not because God will not answer our prayers or give us what we need unless we have a certain number of people to back us up (or that the more people you have praying, the more powerful it is in convincing God to give us what we want). God will run to the aid of one single person who crys out to Him and will meet every one of his needs. The reason that we should ask people to pray for us is so that they can join us in being shaped into God's image. The purpose of prayer is not getting but for becoming.