A lot has been said about prayer since the Minneapolis shooting last week, and much of it has been skeptical, critical, and dismissive. “Prayer is not enough,” we’re told by pundits and activists who generally demonstrate remarkably shallow views of what prayer really is.

And while it’s true that prayer alone isn’t enough — God never tells us to just sit on the couch and ask him to do things for us — it’s vital. Without it, not much that is good, true, beautiful, and lasting happens in this world.

More on that in a moment, but first let’s review some of the more common misstatements that have been bandied about in public discourse over the last week.

Apparently some people (generally non-Christians, or more specifically anti-Christians) think we believe that prayer is a magic wand that invokes a genie God to do whatever we tell him to do, and if it’s not working like magic, perhaps we’re naive and foolish (to use two of the more polite adjectives) to think it’s accomplishing anything.

Others raise age-old questions about why prayer is even necessary. If God is omniscient, why advise him on a situation? If he’s merciful, why plead with him to show mercy? And, of course, the background question to these is the whole problem of evil to begin with. If God is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, why does bad stuff happen in the first place?

I’ve written a book on that subject (full text available on my Substack page), as have many others far more theologically adept than myself, so I won’t go into that here. But there are answers to those questions for any who are genuinely interested in exploring them. Most critics aren’t. They’re more interested in challenging our faith to undermine it than in understanding why we still believe.

One of the more common Christian responses to this national conversation about prayer has been an assertion that prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us. That’s certainly true, but it’s not the whole truth. Prayer does have the power to transform us and align us with God’s nature, character, and will, but it isn’t just about that.

Plenty of biblical passages, including the words of Jesus himself, tell us to ask in order to receive. God often does change situations and circumstances in response to our prayers. That’s not the whole reason for praying, but it’s a big one.

So what is the purpose of prayer that so many people seem to be missing? It’s threaded throughout scripture and history, and when we open our eyes to it, we find that we can hardly go a day or even an hour without praying eagerly, intensely, specifically, and persistently about some need, problem, or desire.

The Reason Behind It All

The big truth about prayer, the reason it’s so central to our lives, is that God has chosen to partner with humanity to steward this planet, overcome evil, and accomplish his will, and he does not violate that partnership.

He retains the right to act unilaterally — as in creation itself (although one could make the case that even that was done in partnership with the second member of the Trinity: John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:2-3) — but generally works through human agency to fulfill his purposes on earth. And one aspect of that human agency is prayer.

You’ll see this throughout scripture if you look closely enough.

Did God deliver Israel from Egypt unilaterally? No, with perfect foreknowledge he planned for it long before it ever happened or was even necessary (Genesis 15:13-14), but he waited for people to cry out for deliverance (Exodus 3:7-10) and then answered those prayers by partnering with a deliverer named Moses.

Did God end Judah’s captivity unilaterally? No, he declared that it would happen (and when), inspired prophets to preach it and write it out in advance, and prompted people like Daniel to pray for it when the time was right (Daniel 9:2-3).

Did God send Jesus unilaterally? No, he planned our salvation from before the foundation of the world and announced a coming deliverer, but he inspired prophets to speak it forth and many people to pray for it to happen centuries before it did.

These are but a few among numerous examples that follow a clear pattern: God says what he wants to do but doesn’t do it until it has been prophetically declared and/or prayed for, and then he partners with human beings to carry it out.

From Beginning to End

This is how he set the world up — why he made humanity in his image (Genesis 1:27), assigned us stewardship over this planet (Genesis 1:28), looked for someone to intercede in order to fulfill his purposes (Isaiah 59:15-16), and finding no one worthy enough to accomplish our salvation, then clothed himself in human flesh to carry out the divine-human partnership (Isaiah 59:16-17; John 1:14).

God is sovereign, but from beginning to end he has sovereignly chosen to work in this world in accordance with the partnership he set up — even when it meant becoming human himself in order to do it.

That’s why we pray. It’s also why we declare truth, live it out, and are empowered by God’s Spirit to accomplish it throughout this world. God doesn’t write the truth in the sky or wave his hand to eradicate evil. He calls us into that truth-telling, evil-eradicating, kingdom-advancing mission — on virtually every page of scripture and every day of human history.

Paul sums it up beautifully: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20).

Prayer is not a magic wand, an info session with an unaware Creator, a plea to an unmerciful Savior, or exclusively a character-building exercise. Nor is it a cop-out for people who don’t want to do real work.

It’s a seed planted in the soil of an eternal kingdom, an exercise in both listening and asking, an invitation into a process of transformation (ours and the world’s), a calling forth of God’s revealed purposes, and an absolutely crucial element in the divine-human partnership.

By that partnership, we steward this planet under the power and authority of a loving, good, generous, merciful, powerful God who specifically tells us to ask for his will to be done and his kingdom to come — on earth, just as it is in heaven.