Why do we need to pray if there's a plan already laid out for us.

[Noxot]

I had a chat with a group of Christians and some atheists and someone asked why we need to pray if we say God already has a plan for us...
His question was:
If God has a plan laid out for each and every one of us...then why should we keep praying for things to happen?

Anyone has an answer to that question?

part of Gods plan is that we fellowship and interact with him in a variety of ways one of which is praying to him. it is a very important part of fellowship with the Lord and for our spiritual growth. God has decided that some things he will not give unless we ask him, because we are made in His image, we have a kind of freedom and God does not take that away from us, he delights in our prayers if we pray as he desires us to pray. and in praying to him we develop more faith and confidence towards God. who would want to pass up dialogue with God? why would someone not want to talk to him and love him and depend on him. one of those ways is through prayer. to actively push our love and affection and our entire soul upwards towards God is a very mystical and spiritually transforming thing, it is very sacramental. and there are also many kinds of prayers.

 

[Rick Otto]

His plan for us is for us to participate with Him in the work He has ordained for us, to bring everyone a knowledge of Him and His salvation. Prayer is involved in that work.

I believe this, and what Noxot said above is true.

 

[ananda]

I believe this, and what Noxot said above is true.

 

[JAL]

I had a chat with a group of Christians and some atheists and someone asked why we need to pray if we say God already has a plan for us...
His question was:
If God has a plan laid out for each and every one of us...then why should we keep praying for things to happen?

Anyone has an answer to that question?

Prayer ministers to God's need, and this world (with all it's suffering) won't come to an end until His need has been met - only then will Christ return.

Mainstream Christianity has always taught that God created this world because He WANTED to, not because He NEEDED to. I disagree. Only a jerk would create a world like this if he didn't need to do so. For instance God could have, theoretically, created us perfectly holy (as we will be in heaven) making it impossible to sin. So why did He give us full freedom of the will? There is only two possible answers:
(1) He NEEDED us to minister to Him (i.e. pray to Him) out of free will OR
(2) He is the sort of jerk who would give us enough rope to hang ourselves even though this level of freedom wasn't absolutely necessary.

For 2000 years the church has taken position #2.

I take position #1. In my view, God had no choice in the matter - He NEEDED us. This directly refutes the mainstream assumption that God is a kind of an idealized philosophical concept, that is, "an infinitely self-sufficient being with no needs." On the contrary, He is a man much like you and I (to speak loosely) - only He was the very first man, and He existed for at least 13 billion years (judging by the age our universe) before making us.

As such - as a man (to speak loosely) - it comes as no surprise that He has needs. Fundamentally, He realized that to live in solitary confinement for all eternity would cause Him to lose His sanity (and then we'd all be in big trouble). Thus in order to protect us (from Himself), He NEEDED to design us in a way that would minister to His need for fellowship - He had to give us full freedom of the will because that's the sort of fellowship that He felt a need for.

After 2000 years, the church still doesn't understand why God created her - and thus they become preoccupied with things like evangelism and missions instead of simply ministering to God's need. They do not understand that if we meet God's need, He will take care of evangelism and missions far more effectively than our man-made approaches (such as Christian TV). The specifics of how He would take care of evangelism and missions are beyond the scope of this post.

Ok, I just provided an argument proving that God is very much a man like us (to speak loosely) but I can provide even more proof, if desired. Just ask.

 

[episkopos]

I had a chat with a group of Christians and some atheists and someone asked why we need to pray if we say God already has a plan for us...
His question was:
If God has a plan laid out for each and every one of us...then why should we keep praying for things to happen?

Anyone has an answer to that question?

1. We pray because it's simply the will of God.
Pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17
As Christians our sole purpose should be to be in the will of God and in respect to this we desire to develop our prayer lives especially because prayer entails more than "adding nuances" to a pre-existing plan. It also happens that when we pray we are more likely to be in the will of God concerning other matters.

2. We continue to pray because we have come to terms with the fact in our walk with God, a lot of things we do will have a mysterious aspect firstly because Christianity is a spiritual affair and secondly because God himself is a mystery.

But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel , when he shall begin to sound, THE MYSTERY OF GOD should be finished , as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. Revelation 10:7
Prayer is mysterious because God is mysterious! God is mysterious and there is nothing we can do about it! If you think you will ever know everything about God then you must think again!...The scripture above tells us that God is a mystery. The mystery of God will be finished in the days of the voice of the seventh angel. Until then, we are going to have to navigate our lives through the mysteries of God.
It is precisely because of the mysteries surrounding God that a lot of people do not pray. These mysteries should not keep us from prayer but rather draw us closer in search of answers.

Excerpt from: "How To Pray"
In this book other mysteries of prayer and important topics concerning prayer are elaborated. I'd recommend it to any Christian wants to develop an effective prayer life and have access to inner courts of prayer.