Why Pray

If we can live godly or ungodly and God is not changed, then what is the purpose of prayer? I thought prayer, was in part, to somehow implore God to change his mind about our condition and improve it according to our desires. (Not that God answers our prayers this way...but it got me thinking!) If he can not be changed, why then pray at all?

Thank you for your column, I look forward to it and have grown in my faith through your teaching.

Sincerely,

Patti

Dear Patti,

As short as your question is, it is very rich, and I appreciate you asking it. Let me start with the nature of God, then turn to prayer, and then to the issue if whether or not our life choices impacts God.

God does not change because God is change. In the biblical book of Exodus God self-reveals as ehyeh asher ehyeh, "I will be what I will be." Most Bibles translate the Hebrew as "I am that I am," but this is incorrect and implies a static deity. The Bible in the original Hebrew tells us that God is flowing, changing, closer to the Tao of the Chinese with which one seeks to align oneself than to a monarch with whom one seeks to ingratiate oneself. Which brings us to prayer.

Prayer designed to get God to do what we want is narcissistic and reflects an idea of God as Cosmic Conseirge. I pray not to change anything but to accept and engage everything. I pray for the courage to align myself with godliness-- compassion, justice, and humility to use the prophet Micah's definition-- that I might meet whatever life/God/Tao brings with open heart, open mind, and open hands. 

Now to your first statement that regardless of how we live God is unchanged. Not exactly. First, God is change; God is unfixed, fluid, creative, and dynamic. Second, God embraces and transcends the entire universe: you are a part of God (and not apart from God). 

Given this, what you do impacts God the same way what you do impacts the environment in which you do it. A good analogy here is ecology. If we live in a manner than destroys life on planet earth we certainly have an impact on both the planet and the solar system. Given the enormity of the universe, however, the impact on the universe itself is small but not negligible. It matters that we live an environmentally ethical life.

Now apply this to God who embraces and transcends the universe. Given the infinite nature of the Whole, the impact of any part is small, but it is there. Every time you align yourself with godliness and engage life with justice, compassion and humility, you strengthen those forces in the world and hence in God. Every time you act unjustly, cruelly, and selfishly you strengthen those forces in the world and in God. 

What we do matters. What we do matters to God. Pray not to change what is, but for the courage to embrace it with compassion, justice, and humility.