If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray?

Some Christians do not believe in God’s absolute sovereignty because they think that it negates the need for prayer. They reason, “If God is absolutely sovereign, then why should we pray?” After all, if God is in control of everything, then he can do whatever he wants, and so there would be no need for prayer!

Let us turn that question around: “If God is not absolutely sovereign, then why should we pray?” After all, if God is not in control of everything, then he might not be able to answer our prayer, right? Then prayer would be no use!

So actually, prayer does not contradict God’s absolute sovereignty. Rather, we pray precisely because God is fully in control of everything. We pray because we are confident that God is able to answer our prayer if he wants to. Yet, if our prayer is not answered, then we can rest assured that it is not because God was unable to answer our prayer, but because he has decided not to answer our prayer for a good reason.

God is not dependent on our prayers, and he is not restricted by our lack of prayer. It is not true that God cannot do anything unless and until we pray. Rather, God is fully able to do anything without needing our prayers. After all, God has done many things for us even though we did not pray for them!

Let us be clear: There is power in prayer. James wrote that “the working prayer of a righteous person is capable of much” (James 5:16). However, the power of prayer is not absolute. The same James wrote in the same book, “You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:3) This means that sometimes, God chooses not to answer our prayers because we pray with the wrong attitude.

Prayer is powerful—not because prayer has power in and of itself, but because God has the power to work through prayer. This is much like how God heals through medicine. Of course, God is fully able to heal a person without medicine. Yet, God often chooses to heal through medicine. Therefore, if a person were healed as a result of taking medicine, it would not be correct to conclude that the medicine healed him and not God. Rather, God healed him through the medicine.

Likewise, God is fully able to do anything even if we do not pray. Yet, God often chooses to accomplish things as answers to our prayers. This is because God wants to have a relationship with us. That is why, even though God knows all things, the Apostle Paul still writes, “By prayer... let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6) Clearly, Paul did not think, “If God knows everything, then why pray?”

When someone scoffingly asks, “If God is absolutely sovereign, then why should we pray?”, it may reveal that in his heart, he only has a transactional relationship with God. He prays only because he wants his desires to be satisfied, and not really because he has a relationship with God. If he were to find out that there is really no power in prayer, or that prayer does nothing at all for his situation, then he would see no need to pray—even if just to communicate with the God whom he claims to love!

So, it is time for us to check our hearts: Even if God’s absolute sovereignty means that there is no power in prayer (and it does not), and even if it means that prayer does nothing at all for our situation (and it does not), would we still pray?