If you’ve struggled with this question, you’re not alone. Many Christians find prayer awkward and difficult. Prayer can and should be very meaningful and encouraging in the life of a believer, but it can be especially difficult for those who find themselves asking, “doesn’t God know all of this anyway?”
The Problem With the Question
The issue is with the question is the assumption lurking behind it. Namely, that prayer is primarily a means for us to provide God with new information. It envisions prayer as a way of twisting God’s arm into doing something he hadn’t planned to do otherwise. This view was held by pagans in Jesus’ day, who thought that if they prayed long and hard enough, they would convince God to hear them and he would do what they wanted.
The pagan way of framing things presupposes that God needs us to tell him what our problems are in order to act on them, and that is the problem. According to Jesus, God doesn’t need us to tell him our desires. He already knows them. And we don’t have to convince God to listen to us. He already is.
Jesus describes God as a loving Father who knows what his children want and need before they even ask him. According to Jesus, the fact that God knows all things shouldn’t cause us to question the effectiveness of prayer, it should empower our prayer. Jesus used the fact that God already knows our needs to encourage us to pray. The thing that confuses so many people about the purpose of prayer is the very same thing that our Lord placed at the foundation of it.
Our Holy Father
So, why all of the confusion? Think about it. When we pray, we speak to the creator of the universe. The eternal and unchanging God. The King of all the earth is the one to whom we are told to share our needs. The prospect of communicating with such a being is intimidating. Who am I to speak to such a person? Why would such a God care about the needs of us lowly humans?
The answer Jesus gives us is that God is not only a righteous and holy King, but also our loving Father. The first line of the “model prayer,” as it is often called, addresses God as our holy Father, a concept which captures both the majesty and transcendence of God as well as the individual and personal nature of our relationship with him.
Elsewhere, Jesus describes prayer in this way:
Jesus gave us a great illustration of how we should view prayer by likening it to a conversation between a Father and his child. When we think of God only as the sovereign Lord who knows all things, it should be no surprise that we would question why he wants us to pray to him. But if we think of God as a loving Father who knowns his children intimately and cares deeply for them, it should be immediately obvious why such a being would want us to pray to him.
Our Good Father
A good father will want what is best for his children. He also likely has a good idea of some of the things they need and want without having to ask. If he is a truly loving Father, his relationship with his kids will be one of his greatest joys. He will seek out ways to spend more time with them. And his children need that relationship with him more than any of the various things they might ask him for.
God is the most perfect manifestation of what it means to be a loving father. He knows us better and loves us more truly than any earthly father could possibly hope to. And as his children, we need our relationship with him more than any of the things we might pray for. The act of prayer itself is more important than the content of our prayers.
The act of prayer itself is more important than the content of our prayers.
We should view God not only as the holy and sovereign Lord, but also as our loving Father who knows our needs and is already working behind the scenes to do what is best for us.
Knowing that God cares for us as a father and delights in listening to us share our needs and desires with him can be a freeing thing. Rather than trying to lobby God into doing what we want, we are free to share our hearts with him knowing that our perfect heavenly father will listen to everything we have to say and will know just what to do to give us all we need and even more than we could ever possibly imagine or ask.
