Does Prayer Influence God?



How God Gives.


Some one may object to all this that the statements of God's word do not
agree with this point of view.

At random memory brings up a few very familiar passages, frequently
quoted. "Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and will shew thee great
things, and difficult, that thou knowest not."[9] "And call upon Me in the
day of trouble; I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify Me."[10] "Ask,
and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you."[11] Here it seems, as we have for generations been
accustomed to think, that our asking is the thing that influences God to
do. And further, that many times persistent, continued asking is necessary
to induce God to do. And the usual explanation for this need of
persistence is that God is testing our faith, and seeking to make certain
changes in us, before granting our requests. This explanation is without
doubt quite true, _in part_. Yet the thing to mark is that it explains
_only_ in part. And when the whole circle of truth is brought into view,
this explanation is found to cover only a small part of the whole.

We seem to learn best about God by analogies. The analogy never brings all
there is to be learned. Yet it seems to be the nearest we can get. From
what we know of ourselves we come to know Him.