Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Stanley Gale on Prayer and God's Sovereignty

"Prayer is a means by which God enfolds us int the outworking of his eternal plan. Prayer is God's means for God's ends. God executes his plan and accomplishes his purposes through the mediation of our prayers as his people. Prayer is intended by God to engage us in the accomplishment of his purposes for his own glory and goals.

"We can say that in praying we can expect God to do something he would not have done had we not prayed, not to limit God but to exalt the glory of his unfathomable providence that governs all causes, mediate and immediate. In other words, to suggest God waits on our prayers does not make God smaller. It makes him bigger than we could ever possibly fathom. Who is like God, governing means and ends, including the acts and prayers of his creatures, without violating their free agency and still maintaining their responsibility and culpability?

"We can take it even a step further: God's sovereign plan not only does not invalidate responsible action, it establishes it because that is the way God has designed things. Our prayers are not intruders on God's plan but instruments in that plan."

Stanley D. Gale
Why Do We Pray?