Can our prayers change God's mind?

There are two points of view which make prayer a pointless exercise.

1. God never interferes with the world as we know it, but expects us to manage it ourselves.
2. God has the whole of life planned out for us. Everything is fore-ordained and everything happens according to his predetermined will.

If we believe that God has no control over events, or if he has absolute control over events, then why bother to pray? Either he can't do anything to help, or he has already decided what is going to happen and our prayers are not going to make any difference.

(A short pause to clarify the meaning of the words I am using. By prayer, I mean specifically requests for certain things to happen. By pointless, I mean that our prayers have no effect on the world around us. I acknowledge that there are many other kinds of prayer than mere requests. I also acknowledge that prayer is never entirely pointless because it changes the way we think and act. But for the scope of this particular post, I am exploring the question "Does prayer make things happen?" and the related question "Can our prayers change God's mind?")

My own view is that God has considerable control over the world. He can and does interfere. But he has chosen to withdraw his control from certain aspects of life to make room for human freedom. We too can and do have an impact on the world by the choices we make. God may well have broad overall plans for the life and future of the world, but he doesn't dictate every detail of our existence. Therefore God's plans have to be flexible. As an illustration, I decide it's time to let our dog out into the garden. I stand by the door and call her, but she doesn't come. So I don't open the door as I intended. I decide to try again in half an hour. My plans are flexible. In fact, this is the way we interact with each other all the time. We have our plans but they are constantly being adjusted in the face of what other people choose to say or do. If the plans are particularly important to us we may not want to adjust them very much, but we still have to adjust. (For example my plan to 'open the back door for the dog' becomes 'go and drag her out of bed and give her a push out of the door'.)

Similarly God must be constantly revising the way he interacts with the world to take into account the varied choices and actions of its inhabitants. If the situation changes, his response to it will change. A situation in which I am not praying about a particular issue is different from a situation in which I am praying about that issue. And a situation in which I am praying desperately about the issue and persuading others to join me in prayer is different again. It therefore ought to be no surprise if God reacts differently to these three situations.

In other words, I believe our prayers can change God's mind. The very fact that we pray introduces a new factor into the situation. Maybe this will be enough for God to review his plans and respond accordingly. Maybe not. But I don't believe prayer is pointless.

With that in mind: Lord, I pray that our joint circuit meeting tonight will lead to a closer union of our two circuits and to a clear decision about the staffing of the new circuit. There are so many issues and strong feelings around, that the meeting has the potential to drive us apart rather than bring us together. Lord, may we be able to share all our concerns openly and honestly, but may we then come to a common mind on how we believe you are leading us.

• The outcome: YES! Every prayer was answered in the affirmative. The meeting concluded with a unanimous vote. (The only dissenting votewas an email from someone who couldn't be present.)