Do your prayers actually make a difference? Really, do circumstances actually change because of your requests made to God?



God knows everything, right? He has seen the end from the beginning and everything he plans will come to pass without a single thing able to stop him. What he wills to happen will happen.



So, why should we even pray? What good is it?



I’ve wrestled with this question a lot. Why would Philippians 4:6 tell us to “pray about everything”, yet God says in Isaiah 46:10, “I can tell you the future before it happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.” I struggle to understand the balance of this partnership between my prayers and God’s unshakable plans. Does me praying about it really change anything?



I turn to God’s word, and while I don’t understand it, I find my answers. Answers that have always been there for me to find if I would seek them. Answers that don’t make it all make sense in my human mind, but answers that prove my prayers matter, and so do yours.



God’s answers to my questions came in 2 Old Testament true stories.



Proof that your prayers matter #1: Numbers 14



God’s people have been ungrateful and disobedient in the wilderness. They’re blaming God for the things they don’t like. They’re complaining about miraculous provision they’ve grown tired of. They’re seeking a God they can see by building a golden calf idol and worshiping it. And finally, God has had enough and he says to Moses in verse 12, “I will disown them and destroy them.”



God’s plan was revealed. Destroy them all. But Moses pleads with God for the people. He asks God to spare them instead of destroy them. And he does 2 very important things in his prayer.



1. Moses acknowledges the truth of who God is. He speaks God's own words in prayer. Verse 17, "Please, Lord, prove that your power is as great as you have claimed. For you said, 'The Lord is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion.'"

2. Moses intercedes and prays for their forgiveness. Verse 19, "In keeping with your magnificent, unfailing love, please pardon the sins of this people." Notice, Moses isn't making excuses for the people. They have been wrong, really wrong. But Moses is pleading to God based on who GOD IS.



And here’s what happens as a result of Moses’ prayer: Verse 20, “Then the Lord said, ‘I will pardon them as you have requested.'”



God did not destroy them as he had planned. He did not disown them. He sustained them for the rest of their lives in the wilderness. They forfeited his promise of their Promised Land, but God’s plan to destroy them changed when Moses prayed.



Moses’ prayer mattered, and it mattered on a large scale. There were over 600,000 men in the wilderness who were 20 years old or older. Doing the math, that means with women and children, there were somewhere between 2 and 3 million people that were forgiven, saved and sustained because of one man’s prayer.



I know you’re only one person, but you are one person that matters on a grand scale. Within you are prayers that can change the lives of more people than you can possibly imagine. Will you pray for them?



Will you pray for them, not because of who you are or who they are, but because of who God is. Because God is gracious, he is kind, he is patient. Because God doesn’t want anyone to perish, but he wants everyone to come to a place of being made right again ...