Most of us would readily admit, at least in our more honest moments, that we simply do not pray as we ought. One reason we do not pray as we ought is that we are not convinced that prayer “works.” And we are not convinced that it works partly because we do not understand how it works—especially, how petitionary prayer works.
The question has sparked intense discussion. Some Christians, for example, explain prayer by psychologizing it, using what might be termed an auto-suggestion model. In this view, petitionary prayer does not change or bring a response from God so much as it changes the one who prays. It helps us take self-inventory in the search for purity of heart or patience in life’s trials. Or it helps the one praying bring his or her will into submission to God’s will. But prayer in this view usually stops with the person who prays.
This model misses entirely the Bible’s repeated insistence that in prayer we approach a transcendent God who can and does work in the world, who is moving the world toward his ultimate purposes in Christ. To do so, God enlists our prayers and uses them. Our petitions are not simply self-directed, but they are potentially world-changing petitions that come to the ear of a God who can act in response.
This means that when we pray we lay hold of and release God’s willingness and ability to act in the world he has created. Prayer is, as John Bunyan said, “a sincere, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.”
However, one question still troubles some people. Granted that petitionary prayer releases God’s willingness and ability to act, what is God’s relationship to the world and to the people who pray to him? Many contemporary Christians balk at the picture of a God who sits in heaven, waiting to intervene in the affairs of the world in response to human prayer. Others question the view of prayer (which carries a long and distinguished pedigree) that presupposes an immutable God whose fixed plan is undeterred by human petition.
An answer is found in the future focus of much biblical prayer. In the Bible, petition is often oriented toward God’s kingdom and the unfolding of his purposes. The praying believer beseeches the God of the future that the marks of God’s rule (forgiveness, sustenance, deliverance, and the Spirit’s fullness) become present in the current situation, which is filled with want, need, and insufficiency. Petitionary prayer, in other words, asks God to bring something of the future—God’s future—into the present.
This eschatological orientation suggests some things about God’s sovereignty and omnipotence. He exercises “rulership” over creation from the vantage point of the future consummation of history. The kingdom, God’s perfect order in which his will is fully present, is indeed coming. Insofar as history is moving toward that great day, God is sovereign over present events.
In a similar way, God is omnipotent. While omnipotence literally means the ability to do everything, its theological meaning is God’s competence and commitment to overrule evil for good. God is omnipotent in that evil is no match for him. But the ultimate outworking of God’s no to evil is yet future. The final no will be spoken at the climax of history when the kingdom is fully here.
But even while we are en route to that event, God partially overrules evil. This conviction is reflected in Paul’s statement, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28, NIV). This omnipotence will be fully demonstrated at the consummation of history, when evil is banished from God’s creation. But a foretaste of that can be experienced in every situation. God desires to work in the present, combating the fallenness that characterizes this age.
This understanding of God’s sovereignty and omnipotence provides insight into prayer. Prayer is an eschatological activity, oriented toward the kingdom of God. Adoration is celebrating the greatness of the sovereign God. Confession is acknowledging the fallenness and incompleteness of earthly life, including our own sinfulness, which results in a request for forgiveness. Thanksgiving is pouring out gratitude for the in-breaking of God’s love and the presence of kingdom power in this fallen age. Petition builds on these three elements. It is our crying out for the presence of kingdom power in each new situation. It is also an expression of our deep yearning for the coming of God’s rule in its fullness.
Prayer, then, is oriented toward tangible change—toward results. As believers pray, they begin to see the presence of the kingdom in all areas of life. At the same time, they open their life situations to receive the in-breaking of God’s rule in the present. They open their lives to God’s abilities, which are not bound by the limits of the present. And through prayer, believers help move history toward that day when the kingdom will arrive in its fullness.
This understanding of the working of prayer takes into account a certain understanding of our participation in God’s plan. For while prayer’s effectiveness ultimately has to do with God’s own sovereign decisions, God also uses human action to enact his purposes. Yes, he exercises providential care, ordering the actions of humankind to serve the purposes of the divine plan. But he also invites human beings to participate. To be effective partners, then, believers must have minds and hearts that are alert and attentive to him.
This element of human participation with God’s action means that in prayer the Christian, as David Wells observed, rebels against the status quo.
By means of prayer the believer sifts through the evil and dislocation of the present in order to determine what must be altered if the rule of God is to be made concrete. Petition becomes the expression of a holy discontent with the present, a stubborn unwillingness to leave things as they are. There is a subversive quality to it.
The Bible repeatedly emphasizes our role in the working out of God’s purposes. The death of Jesus came about by the actions of human beings who sought to oppose God’s will, Peter tells the crowd in Acts 2:23, yet their deeds served to further God’s purposes. The same can be said of Christ’s return. World events, including the machinations of greedy and power-hungry leaders, are setting the stage for his return. Similarly, human and divine agencies interact to evangelize the world. God’s will is that the world hear the gospel. But human beings are invited to involve themselves in the completion of history’s goal and “speed its coming” (Matt. 24:14; 2 Pet. 3:11–12).
This cooperative principle lies behind the working of prayer. God wants to act in the world. But in certain areas and at particular times, God’s action will come only in response to prayer. As Norwegian theologian O. Hallesby said, “God has voluntarily made Himself dependent upon our prayers.”
An example of the working out of this principle lies in God’s decision concerning our salvation. God offers reconciliation to all; yet his actual saving action comes only in response to prayer (2 Pet. 3:9; Rom. 10:13). Similarly, God wants to send spiritual renewal, but revival comes only as we pray (e.g., 2 Chron. 7:14).
God invites us to become partners in his purposes, then, by working, evangelizing—and praying. In this way, God gives the kingdom to the world. The great missionary statesman E. Stanley Jones understood this principle. He wrote,
For in prayer you align yourself to the purposes and power of God, and He is able to do things that through you He couldn’t otherwise do. For this is an open universe, where some things are left open, contingent upon our doing them. If we do not do them, they will never be done. So God has left certain things open to prayer—things which will never be done except we pray.
According to the Bible, then, prayer brings results. Prayer works because God has decided to include people in the working out of his purposes for the world. As Christians express through their prayers faith in the loving, powerful One, their vision is redirected and they lay hold of God’s willingness and power to act on behalf of his people and the world. As we cry for God’s kingdom, his glorious reign, which one day will arrive in its fullness, becomes a life-changing part of our present.
Eugene H. Peterson is pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, Bel Air, Maryland, and author of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (InterVarsity) and Answering God (Harper & Row), both of which are about the Psalms.
