Mark Altrogge on How God Uses Our Prayers…

God Doesn’t Need Our Prayers But He Uses Them Mightily

by MARK ALTROGGE on AUGUST 9, 2012

Photo by Pete Hunt

Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate.

He could, if He chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers, or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead, He allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to cooperate in the execution of His will.

It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God’s mind — that is, His overall purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including the prayers, of His creatures.  – C. S. Lewis, on The Efficacy of Prayer.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.  James 5:16

If you are born again, God has declared you righteous in Christ. Therefore when you pray, God hears and acts.

Sometimes he doesn’t answer right away, or exactly the way we’d like, but he answers.

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