Can I Change God’s Mind Through Prayer? Sýnishorn

Prayer Does Not Change God

Certain passages of Scripture make believers wonder about the nature of God when it comes to prayer. For example, in the book of Jonah we read about a city called Nineveh. It was an evil city that was full of crime, cruelty, and constant lies. The Lord sent His prophet Jonah to tell the inhabitants of the city that they would be punished for their evil deeds with utter destruction. However, the leaders and citizens of Nineveh repented, prayed to God, and the Lord decided not to destroy them as He had promised. God told Jonah that Nineveh would no longer be destroyed. The Bible recorded that even the prophet himself was confused with such a turn of events. Does this Scripture teach us that God changes His mind through prayer? 

To answer this question, we need to remember the character of God. The Bible tells us that God is omniscient. This means that He knows everything that has ever happened and anything that will ever happen. He knows the beginning and the end of all things. In addition, God is sovereign above everything. He determines the events of history. There is nothing that happens in this world that catches God by surprise or does not ultimately fit with His eternal plan. He is the all-knowing King and the Ruler of all. This is the God of the Bible. 

So, does prayer change the mind of God? Does He learn new things through our prayers? Can we influence Him through our petitions to do something He would not otherwise want to do? Of course not. This is not the character of God. This is also not how prayer operates. We have to remember that God speaks in Scripture in a way that our limited minds can understand, anthropomorphically. The Lord chose to communicate in the Bible from our vantage point. 

That is why some biblical stories might read to us as if God changed His mind after the people prayed. However, the Bible explicitly declares that the Lord does not change His mind, because He is not a man. When we read the stories of the Bible together with the Scriptures that explicitly describe God’s character, we arrive at the following truth: the sovereign omniscient God who decides all things has determined to work in this world through prayer.