Key Questions: Dad, why do we pray?
1. If God is sovereign and good, why do we need to pray? Isn’t he already going to do what’s best for us? Can we change God’s mind?
When Jesus teaches about prayer, he acknowledges that “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:7-8), which might seem to undercut the need for prayer altogether.
Further, if we believe that God knows what is best and sovereignly executes his well, then prayer wouldn’t change anything that wasn’t already going to happen.
Such questions, however, reflect a misunderstanding about both the nature of prayer and of God’s relationship with the world.
God ordains both the ends and the means.
James 5:16-18 tells us that “the prayer of a righteous person has great power”; Elijah both stopped rain in Israel and restarted it again three years later through prayer (cf. 1 Kings 17:1–7; 18:41–46).
Sometimes, the effectiveness of prayer can even make it seem that prayer changes God’s mind.
In Exodus 32, after God tells Moses he’s going to destroy the people, Moses speaks to God, and God relents (Exodus 32:14).
Though this is the most explicit, the Bible is full of similar places in which God responds to prayer.
But, as John Calvin argues, that’s because God ordains prayer as a means through which he carries out his ends.
He graciously involves us in his sovereign will to foster our relationship with him and our spiritual growth.
It’s similar with salvation: God could save whomever he wants without our help, but he chooses to involve us as the means.
Any parent can relate.
When we ask our kids to help us around the house, we could often do the work more effectively without them.
But then we would have kids who didn’t know how to contribute to the home.
2. I get so distracted when I pray, and so do my kids! How can we stay focused?
Behind pride, distraction is the biggest obstacle to prayer.
You can combat it by thinking through the five W’s and H.
Who and why:
Remind yourself and your kids whom you are praying to and why.
Prayer is an opportunity to speak directly to the loving creator of the universe. Amazing!
We pray to glorify him and because we need his help (which also glorifies him).
When and where:
Consistency is an antidote to distraction.
When you and your kids have certain times and places when prayer is expected, the routine will reduce distraction.
This could be a favorite chair in the den first thing in the morning, around the dinner table, sitting in a circle on the bedroom floor before bed.
Jesus also chose specific times and places to pray where he could focus (Mark 1:35).
What and how:
It will be difficult to focus if you don’t have a plan.
If you’re wondering what to pray, try one of the simple structures in the next question.
For how, praying out loud will keep your mind from wandering. Writing out your prayers in a journal is even more effective and allows you to review your prayers later and see how God has answered them.
Teach your children that, as Jesus says, our prayers should be simple and direct because God is not impressed by heaping up empty phrases (Matthew 6:7).
3. What should we pray?
If you’ve overcome the challenge of simply making the time for prayer both personally and with your family, you’ll face another challenge: what to pray.
There’s no one way to pray.
When you read the Psalms or the many other prayers throughout Scripture, you see a wide variety of structures for prayer.
However, those prayers commonly include the following four elements, which are helpfully presented and prioritized in the following acrostic: ACTS (see R. C. Sproul).
A—Adoration: Start with praise of God. Just as in the Lord’s Prayer, reminding ourselves whom we’re praying to will shape our entire prayer.
C—Confession: This may be the most overlooked aspect of prayer, but recognizing who we are before God—sinners saved by his grace—will give our prayers a gospel orientation.
T—Thanksgiving: God has provided for us in the past. That should motivate our present prayers.
S—Supplication: If, instead of jumping right into our requests as we naturally tend to do, we put them last, we orient our prayers to intimacy with our heavenly Father rather than to getting stuff from a celestial Santa Claus.
This approach puts our requests in the proper perspective.
What we need and should want most is more of God.
He is completely capable of fulfilling our needs, and he’s done so in the past, but we are sinners who do not know what is best for ourselves, so we ask with humble trust in his goodness.
Another helpful approach is to read Scripture and use it to guide your prayer (see Don Whitney).
Read a passage and praise God for the character he displays, confess the sins it reveals in your heart, thank him for the ways he continues to work as he did in that passage, and ask him to do similar things in your life and the world around you.
You can even simply make a biblical prayer like one of the psalms or one of Paul’s prayers your own (e.g., Romans 15:5-6, 13; Ephesians 1:15-23; Ephesians 3:14-21; Philippians 1:9-11).
Or use the Lord’s prayer as your guide (Matthew 6:9-13), following its seven requests.
