If God is Omnipotent, Why Does He Require Our Prayers to Act on Our Behalf?

Many years before the creation of the Earth, perhaps millennia or trillions of years, God decided to create beings to inhabit the Universe. We tend to think that angels of heaven were the first such beings, but we are not told. Perhaps there were other worlds with different types of intelligent life added over time.

God made an important decision early in that process that these beings would have free will. Being a God of love, He wanted a love relationship with His creatures. Just as no sane man wants an AI wife, God wanted a real relationship. The trouble was that free will comes with a huge risk: at some point in the near or distant future, one of those beings might choose to rebel against God, destroying the harmony of the Universe. Being Omniscient, God knew that it would, indeed, happen and when and how. He knew that the only path to eternal love and harmony was to allow a period of rebellion, suffering, and misery. Therefore, He made a plan, before it happened, to deal with the issue. That is why the plan of salvation is described in the Bible as having been laid before the foundation of the world.

Eventually, the leading angel in Heaven became proud because of his beauty and power. He desired to be like God. He wanted the worship due to God’s Son (see Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14). While initially hiding his intentions, he began to insinuate doubt and slowly convinced about a third of the angels that God’s judgment was unfair. Finally war broke out, and the angel and his followers were cast out (see Revelation 12). This angel became to be known as Satan.

God could have instantly destroyed the rebels, but the fact that Satan was able to convince one-third of the angels to side with him raises the idea that perhaps Satan was right. Such retaliation would have vindicated Satan’s argument. The righteousness of God would be called into question. Was there something wrong with the government of God? Therefore, it was necessary that, in addition to offering reconciliation to those who rebelled, the plan that had been laid must also vindicate the character of God and the justice of His law. This required allowing Satan, after being cast out of heaven, to demonstrate his alternate government, revealing the contrast between God’s way and Satan’s way. Unfortunately, this resulted in untold misery to those who yielded to Satan’s power. Those who ultimately yielded to Satan were another type of sentient beings, humans. After being cast out of heaven, Satan ended up on Earth. This is described in Revelation 12 and Genesis 3. The next thing to happen is Satan deceiving Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The Earth is now the central battle ground and the focus of the plan to provide an eternity of harmony in the Universe. Because of their failure to remain faithful to God, humans are the test subjects. Is it possible for a people to choose God’s government over Satan’s, even after they have been weakened by continuous, previous rebellion? There was only one way for God to succeed. He had to make such a demonstration of love and self-sacrifice that not only could humans choose to follow Him, but the remaining faithful angels and other sentient beings would conclude that Satan was wrong and God is righteous. This conclusion had to be strong enough to last for eternity. Of course, we are describing the sacrifice of His Son on the cross with the offer a full forgiveness of past sins.

We get a glimpse into the role of humans in this controversy in Job chapters 1 and 2. A meeting is held in Heaven among all the Sons of God. These are the representatives of all the worlds, the first being created from each world. Adam would have been there, but he had forfeited his right, so Satan claimed the role of representative from Earth. Adam had unwittingly yielded his important representation.

Job 1:6-12 – Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

There are some things to notice with this short excerpt from the story:

1. Satan throws it in God’s face that the Earth and its inhabitants are his now. Satan has become the God of the humans.

2. God answers, ‘Not so fast. Job is a faithful believer.’

3. The controversy centers on the faithfulness of humans. It is humans with the power to vindicate God against the accusations of Satan.

4. God allows Satan to afflict us for the purpose of causing us to call on Him for deliverance and to build the relationship He wants. This has the added benefit of causing us to reject Satan’s government and yearn for a better and eternal future, forsaking all this world has to offer.

5. A corollary to number 4 is that Satan is not allowed unlimited access to us to torment us (just like in the garden where he was limited to the area of the tree). God’s promise is that Satan cannot “tempt us beyond what we can bear.” A certain level of protection is afforded to both “the just and the unjust.”

As previously stated, God would not instantly destroy Satan and his followers when they rebelled. Similarly, He does not use all his omnipotence to bless His people, in effect, placing His thumb on the scales to influence our decision to follow God rather than Satan. God makes it plain in His Word that He blesses us in proportion to our faithfulness, in proportion to our prayers and in yielding to His will. We can move the hand of God if we pray in Jesus’ name and in accordance with His will, while trusting that His answer is better than our request (whether we can see it or not). We must choose to follow Him, accepting that God is self-limiting in His power so as to ultimately provide a fair test of whose government is best. It is far better for our own interests to align ourselves with God’s righteous law, to be blessed by Him to the extent He sees fit, to vindicate God’s character, and to reap an eternal reward of joy.