The Necessity of Prayer

“You do not have, because you do not ask” James 4:2

If God is all-knowing why do we need to pray? Why does He tell us it is necessary to ask for things? If He knows every detail of my life and sees everything that happens, like He says He does, then why does He want to hear me pray to Him about it?

I used to have the feeling that God was kind of short on self-esteem and wanted to hear me pray so both of us would realize that I needed Him.

When we were kids, if one of us was proven wrong about something, the other siblings delighted in “rubbing it in.” Sometimes the subject would not be dropped until the one who was wrong would chant, “You are right. I am wrong. You are bright. I am dumb.”

I carried this kind of thinking about God too. I felt as though my confession of wrongs and prayers for things I wanted were a sort of cruel ritual that I needed to go through to satisfy the all-knowing God who asked me to chant the song “You are right. I am wrong...”

How far from the truth this thinking is!!!

Bartimaeus can tell you what a blessing it is to be able to ask God for something! He was a blind beggar during the time of Jesus. (Mark 10:46-52)

Doubtless, being blind in any time era is difficult, to say the least! But there was no brail or books on CDs back then; blind people had to remain uneducated. There was no job placement for the handicapped that would find something purposeful for a man to do; blind people had to beg for food to simply exist. There were no sunglasses to cover up your disability and give you a chance to appear to be a “regular” person either. In fact, that superstitious generation believed that handicaps were a judgment from God - you or your parents must have done something really bad to deserve blindness!

The name “Bartimaeus” means “son of religious impurity, foul, polluted, unclean.” And you can see by the way the crowd treated him in this account, that people knew the meaning of names back then. When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by, he shouted “Son of David, have mercy on me!” But those of the crowd who were closest to him told him to shut up!

Jesus heard his pleas for mercy and told the crowd to call him over. Suddenly they changed their tune and told the man to cheer up and get up because Jesus was calling him. Notice, that even though their attitude has temporarily changed (because Jesus was watching them) they were still telling the man what to do!

But when Bartimaeus got to Jesus, he was treated with respect and dignity. Jesus said, “What do you want me to do for you?” Of course Jesus knew what the man needed! But Jesus was not about to take away this man’s privilege of asking, even if he was a blind beggar. Jesus respected Bartimaeus’ free will to choose, to ask, to give God the permission to do what He wanted to do for him already.

Have you ever thought what it would be like if God just automatically did things for you and to you without your asking? What if you woke up one morning and all the clothes in the closet were new because you now weighed 15 pounds less, your favorite car had been replaced by a new Hybrid SUV, the food in your refrigerator was all fresh and unusually healthy, your spouse had a note on the counter that they just got a second job and would see you later tonight, the phone had a cheery message on it from a co-worker you had an argument with yesterday saying they will meet you for lunch... How happy would your Mr. Roger’s life be if you never had the privilege to ask God for anything, if everything was just done for you and to you, automatically?

God is so good to give us the prerogative to ask, to pray, to confess as we choose. It is for our sake that we are told to ask. God doesn’t take away our choices. His respect allows us to speak, even when He knows what we will say.

I know this is long already, but there is one more reason I am thankful that God lets us pray about things even though He already knows. Maybe this will only make sense to the girls...

So many times I have been in such a muddle in my mind that I don’t even know what I want! Feelings and thoughts fly around in such a tangle that I can’t sort it out enough to know what I am thinking. God is all knowing, but I am not! I don’t even know what I am thinking sometimes!

Many times people have been kind enough to listen to me as I “talk out” what I am “thinking.” Their personal interest encourages me to keep talking until I can get it out. Their questions help me sort out conflicting feelings. Their insights connect my thoughts like I cannot seem to do on my own. I am always so grateful to be able to talk to people like this!

But even better than people is God. With people I tend to hold back because I just cannot let it be known that I am “that stupid.” Or I can see that they are getting bored. There is no way that people can sort out some of the stuff going on in my head anyway! But God has all the time, patience, wisdom and love to listen to me, as long as I need, in order to sort things out and have thoughts that I can understand!

Prayer is a necessity. Not because God has the need - He does know everything already! - but because He will not do things without our permission. He waits for us to see our needs and choose to ask Him. He lets us talk things out so WE will know what we are thinking.

What will you give God permission to do for you today?