Thanks for writing this. I’ve had a draft about this very topic sitting around for months.

Here’s my analogy. Oprah gets hurt in a car accident, and millions of people are praying for her to survive. But Timmy is alone at his family’s farm in Iowa for the weekend, and he runs himself over with a tractor. He dying, but no one knows he’s there.

So if you believe prayer works, Oprah should live and Timmy should die. That’s not the God I believe in. He doesn’t pick and choose who lives and who dies. I believe we are all given freewill, and what happens happens. God may interveen at the beginning of and the end of life, but as we live our lives, he is just a bystander.

However, prayer can have a place in your life. If it makes you feel better and makes you feel closer to God, then it’s worth it. But if you are praying to God for him to change something for you, sorry but you’re out of luck.