Can prayer change God's mind ?

What is prayer? Is it simply a means of getting our way with God; of influencing God to do what we want? In ways we don’t fully understand as yet, we do know that God chooses to involve us, through our prayers, in the outworking of his divine plan in the world. But does this mean that our prayers possess the potential to actually change God’s mind? I don’t think so, for as the noted Danish philosopher and theologian, Søren Kierkegaard (Sern Key-r-ke-gor) once said, “Prayer does not change God; it changes those who pray.”

“But how can this be,” you ask. “Isn’t prayer about getting God to respond to my desires; my needs; and my wants and wishes?” This does seem to be the popular understanding of prayer in today’s culture. Doesn’t it? Take, for example, the youngster who was once asked by his pastor, “Son, do you pray every day?” “Not every day,” he replied, “some days I don’t want anything.”

This boy’s attitude is reflected in the life of every person who believes that God can be reduced to nothing more that a magical genie or a fairy godmother, in which prayer becomes the means by which they believe they can manipulate God to answer prayer on their terms. But God is not like that. God is sovereign. God moves according to his own purposes.

What we need to understand, therefore, is that “(t)rue prayer – the prayer that must be answered – is the personal recognition and acceptance of the divine will” (Wescott). Nowhere do we see this principle more clearly demonstrated than in the life of Jesus as he wrestles in prayer; the ominous shadow of death looming ever closer. This account is said to be “one of the most moving in all the New Testament.”^[i]

Our story opens with the scene of Jesus and his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane – one of Jesus’ favourite spots located at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Amidst the muted shades of mid-night, Matthew reveals to us Christ’s supreme struggle to submit his will to that of God. No one wants to die at thirty-three; and least of all does any man want to die from the agony of crucifixion with its hours of limitless and excruciating pain; cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps; and the intolerable pangs of a burning, raging thirst.

And so, Matthew’s description of Jesus as being "sorrowful and troubled," in verse 37 gives us a “picture of a truly human anxiety in the face of death.”[ii] “No one can read this story without seeing the intense reality of that struggle. This was no play-acting”[iii]; this was for real. Here, Jesus is shown to be anything but above temptation. Far from wending serenely through his ordeal like some superman, untouched by this world’s viciousness, Jesus, we are told, is weighed down with grief to the “point of death” (v 38), that is, to the utmost limit or degree. So great is his sorrow that he is hardly able to bear it!

And so Jesus, overcome with grief, falls face down before God, by so doing he expresses his deepest anguish and most intense plea to God. Using an intimate form of address, he begins his prayer: “My Father.” This image is meant to convey, not only the love, tenderness, and care that God had always demonstrated toward Jesus, but also the special relationship they share. A little boy in New York walked into a large commercial bank; he stepped right past the security guard on duty, went past the tellers, and walked straight past the Vice-President. He went right up to the President and spoke to him, while others stood outside, looking at the sign over the President’s office that read, “No Admittance.” You see, the boy had access to the President because he was the boy’s father.

It was Jesus’ special access to, and intimacy with, God his Father that provided him with the strength he needed to do God’s will, in spite of the prospect of having to bear the sins of the world, and to face the most reprehensible and brutal form of death imaginable! And it is our access to, and intimacy with, God that will likewise provide the spiritual resources we need in order to battle and overcome life’s devastating set backs and to face life’s uncertainties. Things happen to every one of us during the course of our lives that we cannot understand; things that cause us to question life’s fairness and doubt the goodness of God. It is at such moments that our faith is tried to its utmost limits, and at these times it is reassuring to know that in Gethsemane Jesus, as a human person, went through the same struggles too…and was victorious!

From this picture of our Lord that Matthew gives us, we can see what prayer is all about. We see that prayer is first and foremost not about “getting things from God.” Prayer is essentially about communion with the “Thou who is our life.” The essence of the intimacy we share with God is captured in the words of the hymn: “In The Garden”:

I come to the garden alone,

While the dew is still on the roses,

And the voice I hear,

Falling on my ear,

The Son of God discloses.

He speaks and the sound of his voice

Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,

And the melody

That he gave to me,

Within my heart is ringing.

And he walks with me, and he talks with me,

And he tells me I am his own;

And the joys we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known.

- C. Austin Miles

One of the most famous paintings in the world is Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. One of its remarkable features is that her eyes seem to follow you wherever you stand in the room. God is like that. He sees us not just from afar; he follows us with his eyes, hears our heartbeat, knows our name and stays with us (even) when we stop.[iv] When the chips are down, it is good to know that God will never leave you nor forsake you.

As we continue to survey our text, we notice that there were three instances in which Jesus prayed concerning his impending ordeal. Among the Jews, the number three was held sacred. Scriptures are replete with examples in which important transactions are mentioned as having been conducted three times. Consistent with this, the Jews were in the habit of praying three times for any important blessing, or for the removal of any impending tragedy (Barnes).

For Jesus, this impending tragedy is the “cup.” This cup is the same one he referred to in 20:22-23 – the cup of the wrath of God. The OT uses this term regularly as a metaphor of punishment and judgment. And so, like any mortal, Jesus’ human nature responds to this most brutal form of capital punishment – he sought deliverance!

So Jesus prays that “if it is possible,” he might not have to go the way of the cross. We see now that in the midst of the crisis Jesus is tempted to seek an alternative to sin-bearing suffering as the route by which to fulfill his Father's redemptive purposes. And as he prays in agony and is supernaturally strengthened (Luke 22:43), he learns only that the Cross is unavoidable if he is to obey his Father's will.[v]

But as far as Jesus is concerned, “(t)he governing reality…is not (his) will…but the will of God, who is fixed in his intent to accomplish salvation for the world through the death of his Son (cf. John 6:38; 4:34). In actuality, if the will of the Father is (to be) done, (then) it is not possible to avoid the cross.”[vi]

And so notice, that as he prays, something amazing begins to happen: his prayer in v 39 moves from one for deliverance from death (“may this cup be taken from me”), and eventually becomes in v 42 one of trust and commitment to God’s will (“if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done").

This experience not only demonstrates the need for us to pray earnestly and repeatedly for the removal of any adversity we face, but more important, it also demonstrates that we ought to be willing to submit to any condition once it becomes clear that it will not be removed, for as former Archbishop, Richard C. Trench reminds us, “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance (it is) co-operating with his willingness.” When we recognize and begin to actively apply this principle, as difficult as it is, we will begin to see the transforming force of prayer in our lives.

Wasn’t this what happened to Jesus? He prayed in agony; but now he rises with poise. He emerges from prayer to face his ordeal, not reluctantly as before, but with determination to do the Father’s will^[vii]; what he at first wanted to avoid, he now faces unwaveringly with his face set toward the cross and the fulfillment of his Father’s will.

It appears as if his disciples were still sleeping on the ground; so when Jesus heard the approach of the heavily armed mob, he shouted to the drowsy disciples, “Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!" This shout does not by any means suggest that Jesus was about to flee at the approach of Judas who now comes to betray him. Jesus did not “go” to flee from Judas but to meet him!

We may conclude then, that prayer, far from being an exercise in simply “getting things from God,” is a transforming experience in which the Master Potter moulds us and makes us after his will, so that in the end, we not only do God’s will, but we become God’s will! Listen to this poem written by an unknown author:

I asked God for health that I might do greater things;

I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked God for strength that I might achieve;

I was made weak that I might learn to obey.

I asked for riches that I might be happy;

I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power and the praise of men;

I was given weakness to sense my need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;

I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing I asked for but everything I hoped for.

^[1]KJV Bible Commentary. 1997, c1994. Thomas Nelson: Nashville

[1] M. Eugene Boring, Vol. 8, The New Interpreter’s Bible: The Gospel of Matthew; Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections, Electronic Ed. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 476.

[1] William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 2, Rev Ed., Edinburgh: The St Andrew Press, 1975, 348.

[1] Keith Warrington, God And Us: A Life-Changing Adventure, Milton Keynes: Scripture Union, 2004, 27

[1] Frank E. Gaebelein, Ed., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Computer software, The Zondervan Corporation, 1989-1998.

[1] Hagner, D. A. 2002. Vol. 33B: Word Biblical Commentary: Matthew 14-28. Word Biblical Commentary. Word, Incorporated: Dallas

^[1] Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. 1999. Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary. T. Nelson Publishers: Nashville