Questions About Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

As partners in God’s work on earth, we insist that God’s will be done while at the same time committing ourselves to whatever that may require of us. “Your kingdom come, your will be done,” Jesus taught us to pray. These words are not placid invocations but demands, expressed in the imperative
mood. Give us justice! Set the world aright! God has called out partners on
earth to serve as heralds of a world on the way to healing and redemption.
We have different roles to play, we and God. As God made clear to Job, we humans lack the capacity to figure out providence and cosmic justice and answers to the “Why?” questions. It is our role, rather, to follow in Jesus’ steps by doing the work of the kingdom both by our deeds and by our prayers. What is God doing in the world? The answer is another question: What are God’s people doing? We are Christ’s body on earth, to borrow Paul’s metaphor. We are“in Christ,” a phrase the New Testament repeats 164 times. Those we minister to, Christ ministers to; those we forgive, Christ forgives. When we extend mercy to the broken, we reach out with the hands of Christ himself.