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?

Praying through the Psalms

"By using the Psalms, you will find that instead of seeing God as a cosmic vending machine, you will grow to know him as your Father in heaven. You will drink deeply of his grace. You will find your nourishment in his truth. Prayer becomes about something more than information. It fosters transformation."

Stanley D. Gale
Why Do We Pray?

How Are Our Prayers & God's Soverignty Related?

Recently I've been working through the Basics of the Faith series of booklets published by Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing. I've found that the booklets in this ever-growing series (now numbering 30+) are extremely accessible and helpful in giving overviews of their various topics.

In reading Stanley D. Gale's Why Do We Pray?, I came across this nugget that I thought I'd share:

"How do our prayers relate to God's eternal plan? The answer is that God has ordained our freely offered, honestly expressed petitions as his appointed means to accomplish his eternal purposes."

Somehow, in a way I don't (can't?) fully understand, God's power is at work in and through my prayers, not working independently from God's sovereignty, but rather as an agent of it. So let us pray!