---
title: 'God’s Providence and the Privilege of Prayer'
type: text
hasMedia: true
requiresPurchase: false
authors:
- 'Cilas Menezes'
date: 2026-04-07
topics:
- 'Prayer'
- 'Providence'
url: https://confessional.org/gods-providence-and-the-privilege-of-prayer
---

# God’s Providence and the Privilege of Prayer

Few aspects of the Christian life are more neglected than the cultivation of a habit of personal and private prayer. Yet, we have powerful reasons that should compel us to come often and with confidence into the throne room of God. Our Father delights to hear the voices of his children and has chosen, in his providence, to weave their petitions into the fabric of his eternal plan.

Few aspects of the Christian life are more neglected than the cultivation of a habit of personal and private prayer. In his classic *Preaching and Preachers*, Lloyd Jones wrote, “I suppose we all fail at this next point more than anywhere else; that is in the matter of prayer.”<a>1</a>

One of the most vivid testimonies to the believer’s struggle in prayer, however, comes from the Puritan John Bunyan:

And verily may I but speak my own experience, and from that tell you the difficulty of praying to God as I ought; it is enough to make your poor, blind, carnal men to entertain strange thoughts of me. For, as for my heart, *when I go to pray, I find it so loth to go to God, and when it is with him, so loth to stay with him, that many times I am forced in my prayers, first to beg God that he would take mine heart, and set it on himself in Christ, and when it is there, that he would keep it there.* Nay, many times I know not what to pray for, I am so blind, nor how to pray, I am so ignorant; only, blessed be grace, the Spirit helps our infirmities (Rom. 8:26).<a>2</a>

Perhaps you recognize yourself in Bunyan’s confession. Or maybe you have grown so accustomed to a prayerless life that you scarcely notice the loss. May his words stir you to self-examination, that you would take up afresh the calling to be a man or a woman of prayer.

But as you battle against prayerlessness, be encouraged: In his absolute sovereignty and freedom, God has chosen to accomplish many of his purposes through his people’s prayers. This is not an accident of history, but part of God’s eternal plan.

Consider these examples from Scripture:

1. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah came in response to the outcry of the oppressed (Gen. 18:20–21; Ezek. 16:49–50).
2. Israel’s deliverance from Egypt was God’s answer to the groaning and cries of his people (Ex. 2:23–25; 3:7–9).
3. Your conversion, dear reader, was an answer to the prayers of saints—those under the Old Covenant (Ps. 67:3–5; 117:1) and those under the New (Rom. 15:8–13).
4. Christ’s resurrection fulfilled his prayer on the cross (Ps. 22:19–22).
5. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost came in answer to Christ’s prayer (John 14:16).
6. Saul’s conversion in Acts 9 may well have been an answer to the prayers of believers obeying Jesus’ command to pray for their persecutors (Matt. 5:43-44).

Does this mean our prayers change God’s mind or determine his will? By no means! As the Westminster Confession teaches, God’s eternal decree is unchangeable (WCF 3:1; 5:1). Yet in that decree, he has also ordained the means by which his purposes will come to pass. No one can bind the Lord except himself, and in his wisdom, he has bound certain ends to specific means—among them, the prayers of his saints.

There is no *necessary* connection between means and ends. Food does not nourish by some independent power; water does not extinguish fire by its authority; soil does not produce a harvest apart from God’s blessing. These connections exist because the Ruler of the universe willed them to be so (Ps. 104:14; 145:15-16; Col. 1:16-17).

The same is true of prayer. God could accomplish all his purposes instantly by the word of his power (as in creation), but he has chosen to work through appointed means, and he commands us to use them. This is no mere duty; it is a privilege.

Yet here is a danger: we can become so focused on the visible instruments that we credit them with the power that belongs to God alone. The Bible teaches us to use the means diligently (whether Word, sacraments, or prayer), but never to trust in them as if they could work apart from the Spirit’s power. We must look beyond the means to the gracious Author, who alone makes them effectual. And when we do, our hearts can only respond, *Praise be to the Lord, who invites us into his sovereign work through the humble act of prayer.*

*So then, let us pray.* Not because our words have any power in themselves, but because our Father delights to hear the voices of his children and has chosen, in his providence, to weave their petitions into the fabric of his eternal plan.

When you pray, you are not informing God of what he does not know, nor persuading him to be kind, for he is already infinitely wise and gracious. Instead, you are entering the throne room of the King who has promised to work through your requests for his glory and your good. Therefore, let us come boldly to the throne of grace today (Heb. 4:16), trusting that the God who ordains all things has also ordained our prayers as a means to accomplish his perfect will.