I've Seen the End of YouSýnishorn

Why Pray?

It doesn’t make sense to me that God can know everything, yet still tells us he wants us to pray and believe that our prayers can make a difference. When I follow this train of thought very far, my faith plummets and I want to throw up my hands and denounce any possibility of God existing at all.

A dear friend, who is also a pastor, once challenged my notions about prayer: “You think your prayers are valid only if the outcome is what you want. Like it counts only if you get what you ask for. And you think we’re supposed to know what to ask for when we pray.”

One day after glioblastoma took the life of a patient, I sat in the silent hospital chapel and stared at the stained-glass wall behind the pulpit—The Last Supper, spread out in bits of colored glass in front of me—Jesus and the disciples eating before he went out to die on a cross. Pilate would convict him of crimes he did not commit, and he would be cruci­fied for the sins of humankind.

Even as they shared that final meal, the outcome was already determined. But Jesus, who surely had a more eternal perspective than I do, prayed for relief from his coming torture and death. In the garden, moments after the Last Supper, he said, “May this cup be taken from me.”

Of course, God, as he is prone to do, either did not answer Jesus’ prayer, or said no.

So I often feel like the guy who came to Jesus and said something like, “Heal my son, if you can.”

Jesus said, “If I can?”

I imagine God saying, “Don’t come to me and half believe I’m able to do the things you need.”

So I pray, and I end up being like the “if you can” guy, and I say two things at once: “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

What causes you to pray—or not to pray? Why do you think Jesus prayed in Gethsemane to be relieved of his purpose on earth?