What are we doing when we pray? Do we ask our Maker to remember us, and be gracious to us, and help us out? It is His very character to relentlessly love and pursue us (Isaiah 54:10, Zeph 3:17, Psalm 36:5-6, Psalm 86:15, 1 , Psalm 107, Psalm 119:64; 1 Chr 16:34, Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:10) He is waiting to bless us – yet we need to seek righteousness and walk in it. (Proverbs 3:5-6, 2 Chr 16:9) We have free will, we can choose to pursue our own goals rather than aligning our will with His. (Psalm 37:4) It is disingenuous to pray for relief and blessing while we remain in our own paths. Suggesting that our prayers somehow change Him, the omniscient and omnipotent being that never sleeps (Psalm 121:4), that we give him new information or entreat Him to change His plans is idolatrous!
Instead, our prayers align us with, or attune us to His perspective and will. We can trust that He is good. We can even bring about miraculous healings or wonders if we believe (Mark 9:23), not because we make G-d do something that He would not have otherwise wanted, but rather by bringing down His blessing, realising here on earth His good and perfect will that He had all along. So yes by our prayers we change reality. The concept of “attuning” is not arbitrary. Creation is all about frequencies and oscillations, from the creation days, Sabbath, the yearly festivals, day and night all the way to high-frequency electromagnetic radiation disrupting sleep patters and release of melatonin for our bodies’ self-healing, there is a lot of power in frequencies, and by attuning ourselves we can make big differences in the world. But we do not change Him, He is unchangeable. With creation, He set up the possibility of choice, while knowing the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).
To me, it is so easy to believe in being a failure: maybe under a generational curse, maybe just deluded and useless. There is always something holding me back, disallowing me from fulfilling my destiny. This has become my default position and self-view. From where I stand now, this mindset seems a lot more plausible, and easier than enduring the consciousness that my fate is in my hands, that the power and love and blessing are all there in my Maker’s hand. He yearns to pour it out over all of us. All we need is to know what to ask, and to ask, and then to act. All of this is prayer.
By aligning to His thoughts and purposes in prayer, we also open up our perspective for the things to come, and see our biographies in context. He is fulfilling His good purpose (Num 23:19, Psalm 135:6,
Is 14:24, Is 46:10). It may seem strange to assert this with all the suffering, injustice and cruelty in this age, but we need to keep in mind that this is self-inflicted. With choice comes experience. It is not on us to judge: is all this suffering worth a humanity that has a free will? What we can judge however should be very heartening: everything in our lives’ past He did not deem bad enough to prefer us not being there, individually and as a collective. Maybe it’s because of what’s in store for us, that we should keep our hopes up and not give up.
Rabbi David Aaron points out these things beautifully in two videos.
Rabbi David Aaron speaking at Sinai Indaba, South Africa:
How to Get Your Prayers Answered: Is Anyone Listening?
Rabbi David Aaron speaking at Sinai Indaba, South Africa:
Living on Purpose: Why on Earth Are We Here