How to Pray Like it Matters (Because it Does)
He was standing in a forest.
The trees around him were tall and reached for him in the dark with sharp, black limbs. He felt like he was being watched by a thousand yellow eyes peering at him from the shadows. It was the kind of place that a person would not stroll through — you would pass through it as quickly as possible with chill bumps tingling down your arms and back.
He wasn't sure how he got there. He could only remember that he had been walking and then stopped.
Immediately in front of him, there was a fork in the path. One trail seemed to curve upward into a cold fog and end in some destination he could not see. The other path headed downward into shadows so thick that they seemed to swallow the ground. Frankly, both paths seemed unsettling.
A figure stood between the two paths. One that was not quite human. The figure’s voice did not echo, but its words were so sobering that they settled on him as if they were made of heavy weight.
“If you take the path to the left, you’ll walk a road already written. Nothing you do will change the ending. Pray if you like, but the outcome won’t be any different.”
“If you take the path to the right, every word you speak, every choice you make, will transform the world around you. You will need to pray. But pray carefully—because everything will depend on it.”
The man stared down both paths, trying to make out details in the heavy fog and black shadows. He understood that one path stripped him of the power of choice. No matter what he did, nothing would change. But the other path crushed him with responsibility and heightened his anxiety. Every decision he made, right or wrong, could become a matter of life or death.
He opened his mouth to answer the angel.
And then — he woke up.
The room was quiet, but his heart was pounding in his ears. His brow was wet with sweat.
Even as the dream began to fade, he somehow knew that it was about prayer. Two questions wrestled in his mind, each one trying to pin the other one down. If God has already decided everything, why should I pray? But if my prayers change things, what happens if I pray the wrong thing?
A Paradox of Prayer
Forgive me for the overly dramatic introduction. I wanted to find a creative way to communicate a paradox about prayer - two things that seem to contradict one another, but are both true at the same time.
I observed this paradox clearly when I read James 5:17–18:
“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”
Ask almost any believer, and they’ll tell you: rain is not random. Weather patterns are not a matter of guesswork for God. He is no meteorologist. He is the Rainmaker. Both drought and dew are in His hands.
But James doesn’t attribute the weather to God alone. He plainly states that Elijah’s prayer caused both the drought and the downpour. He doesn’t present prayer as superstition or coincidence. He presents it as the cause.
So here is the tension: God controls the weather. He had already ordained when it would rain—and when it wouldn’t. The drought was decreed, and its end was established.
Elijah did not twist God's arm. He didn’t override God's will. In fact, if you read the full account in 1 Kings 18:41–46, you’ll see that Elijah had to pray seven times before the rain finally came. At first glance, it might seem as though Elijah was trying to convince God to do something He hadn’t planned.
But the whole of Scripture teaches us this: prayer does not interrupt the sovereignty of God. It participates in it.
That dream I described earlier? It’s a metaphor for the two common, yet flawed, theories about prayer.
Theory One says God controls everything and has predetermined every action and reaction. Nothing can be changed. According to this view, prayer accomplishes nothing. You can pray—but it doesn’t matter. The outcome is already decided. This theory honors God’s power but robs the believer of any real agency.
Theory Two suggests that prayer is powerful, but also potentially dangerous. Be careful how you pray—because God might give you what you ask for, and it could make things worse. This theory gives weight to human responsibility, but leaves the believer paralyzed by anxiety. What if I get it wrong? What if my imperfect prayer breaks something that was working fine?
The Resolution: Both Things Are True
So, where does that leave us?
Right in the middle of the tension. And what a beautiful tension it is!
God is fully sovereign. He has every detail of your life perfectly planned. Nothing slips through His fingers. Nothing. Not a single drop of rain.
At the same time, our prayers really do matter. They are not empty rituals we do to fool ourselves into feeling better. They are effectual, as James says. They actually work! They participate in God's purposes. We don’t pray to change God’s mind. We pray as a privilege — we join Him in His work.
This paradox doesn’t paralyze us—it sets us free. It gives us confidence.
- Confidence that God is in control, so we’re not carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.
- Confidence that He will never answer a foolish prayer—He won’t grant something that would harm us just because we asked with good intentions.
- Confidence that our prayers shape the world because they align with God’s power.
So don’t stop praying. In fact, pray more.
Here are two practical ways to pray with confidence in both God’s sovereignty and the effectiveness of man’s prayer:
- Pray according to God’s Word.
Let Scripture shape your requests. When your prayers are grounded in God’s revealed truth, you can pray with certainty—even when the details are uncertain. - Pray according to God’s will.
Saying those words, “Not my will, but yours be done,” reminds us that we are in a place of submission to God, not in a position of advisement. God's will is wiser, kinder, and better than anything we could ever plan for ourselves.
You don’t have to choose between the discouragement of thinking your prayers do no good and the anxiety of thinking your prayers might harm. You serve a God who has invited you to pray so that He might be glorified in working His perfect will in your life.
Prayer doesn’t change God, but it changes everything else!
