It’s Pointless To Pray?
How does one respond to the question, “If God knows everything, then He must know what we need, and we can’t change His mind, so why bother praying?”
Prayer is not about altering God’s plans but aligning ourselves with Him. God already knows our needs (Matthew 6:8), but He values our love and desire to seek Him. By praying, we grow in faith, love, and compassion, strengthening our connection with God and our relationships with others.
Prayer Is About Relationship, Not Transactions
Prayer is not just relaying information to God; it is not a transactional thing of “I give you this, so you give me that.” With this idea, the premise of the challenging question is essentially, “I don’t need you because things will play out for me regardless.”
How does this sound to God?
This is a blatant disregard for our relationship with God. Prayer is about a relationship, not about a transaction. It should not come from a wanting or an expectation of outcome.
Seeking God Over Asking for Things
Of course, we should still pray to God in times of need, which is truly important. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, St. Paul talks about how he boasts of his weaknesses because that is when God is strong in him. That through our weaknesses, God is strong.
So, it is crucial that we seek God in our times of need. But the virtue does not lie in our asking but in our seeking of God.
Prayer Is an Act of Love and Devotion
God loves that we seek after Him. That is His whole goal: true reconciliation with His people again. That is why God Himself entered the history of humanity, embracing the human journey by becoming man, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ being both man and God, the bridge was created to complete the connection between God and man.
And while God’s goal is to reconcile with us, our goal should be to reconcile with Him, showing our love and our wanting to be with Him, in the same way we show our wives and husbands how much we love them.
Although we can hand our husbands and wives flowers directly or take them out on dates, we can’t necessarily do the same thing with God. The equivalent, in essence, would be acts of love and seeking such as penance, reading scripture, repentance of sins (the thing that keeps us away from Him), and even prayer. This also includes loving God’s creation and doing what God has asked us to do: be the world's peacemakers.
Love Is an Action, Not Just a Feeling
Love needs to be viewed as a verb, not an adjective. It should not be considered as “What do I gain from the other?” but rather as “What am I willing to do for the other”?
We must view love in the Greek view of agape love, which is outward-looking. This is seeking what is best for others, even willing to suffer or sacrifice for the other person. This love resembles a parent-and-child type of love: "I will do anything for them, and I will extend myself, even sacrifice, for the purpose of nurturing the other.”
Doesn’t this sound like what God gives to us? God is so determined to be with us again that He sacrificed Himself for our sake and endured suffering because He loves us, despite us choosing to turn away from Him.
Prayer is communication with God, and wouldn’t you be elated when your loved ones devoted their time to seek after you, regardless of their reason?
Jesus made it clear to us that God is aware of our needs when He said, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” - Mathew 6:8.
God rewards us when we reward Him, and to God, His treasure is our love. To us, our treasure is God’s love.
Seek after God, always, and do so in all possible ways. When we pray, we do so to draw out of ourselves and into a place where we care for God and others.
Prayer Transforms Us
Prayer helps rescue us from our thoughtlessness and makes us better, more loving people. While it is true that it will not change God’s mind since God is outside of time and changeless, God knows what we need but rewards us because of our offering of prayer.
As we learn to pray to God and pray on other's behalf, we learn to care about both, teaching us to love God and our neighbor.
“One of the teachers of the law came and heard the Sadducees arguing. He noticed that Jesus had given the Sadducees a good answer. So he asked him, ‘Which is the most important of all the commandments?’
Jesus answered, ‘Here is the most important one. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Deuteronomy 6:4,5) And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ (Leviticus 19:18) There is no commandment more important than these.’
‘You have spoken well, teacher,’ the man replied. ‘You are right in saying that God is one. There is no other God but him. To love God with all your heart and mind and strength is very important. So is loving your neighbor as you love yourself. These things are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.’
Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely. He said to him, ‘You are not far from God’s kingdom.’” - Mark 12:28-34
May God bless you.
