Misconception Number 3:
God will just do what He’s going to do, right? Prayer doesn’t really have
an effect if God is all-powerful and does what’s best in every situation.
So then our prayers must just be formalities, for our own benefit, or just for
showing our dependence on Him, right?
Yes, prayer is a way to acknowledge our dependence on God and to draw close to
Him. But it is so much more powerful and critical than that. It
gets God’s Will done on earth. And there are times when God’s Will
doesn’t get done without it. This is just the way that He has ordered the
earth to work.
Here’s an eye-opening, humbling passage to consider: In Ezekiel
22, the Word of the Lord comes to
Ezekiel and tells him all about the disgraceful, ungodly things that Jerusalem
is guilty of doing. And then in verses 30-31, we read this:
“I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me
in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found
none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery
anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the
Sovereign Lord.”
The people’s sin earned them serious consequences and punishment. But God
wanted to relent. He wanted to be talked out of destroying them.
And He would have . . . if only. If only He could have found at least one
godly person who would “stand in the gap” for the people. One godly
person who lived rightly before Him and who sought to intercede by prayer for
the people of the land.
God is saying, “I looked for a godly man who would appeal to My mercy - a man
who would pray that I would spare the people, who would be an example to the
people of how they should be living. I would have relented for one godly
man, because I didn’t want to give them what they deserved. But I found
no one! There was no one righteous enough, no one that called out to Me
on behalf of the people, that called on My desire to be merciful and to
relent. And so I dealt with them in justness, instead of mercy.”
That is so sobering to me. God doesn’t just do whatever He wants.
He relies on us and our prayers to get His Will done. He needs righteous
people to stand in the gap for others. This is why a sensitive heart to
Him is so important, why reading the Bible and spending quality time with Him
is critical. It’s how we find out what God expects from us, how He
operates (as much as we can possible understand that), what His Will is, and
how we can best live and pray to get that accomplished.
After I realized that God doesn’t just do whatever He wants to but that He
waits for our prayers, I felt a much greater responsibility to do my part to
seek the Lord, to remain connected through prayer and the Word, to learn to
listen and obey, and to try to live righteously. Because as the Bible
says in James
5:16, the “prayer
of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” And I want my
prayers to have impact for God’s glory, for His will, and for eternity.
