Let's look at the system as a whole here.

You have a God who knows everything and who is all powerful.

He, for whatever reason, has let this earth run on its own where people get sick, where people get hurt by accidents, where starvation and poverty are extremely common, where abuse and rape and murder and theft and every horrible thing happens on a daily basis in vast quantities, and then you get to pray about things.

But according to the Bible, as Jesus taught us how to pray in the Lord's Prayer, we should be praying, I will be done.

Most of the time, when we get a prayer that is no or that is wait or that doesn't get answered, we are told it's because it wasn't in God's will.

God has different plans.

Well, then why did you pray?

If you can't change God's will and you can only pray within his will, then you are only praying to God to do the thing God already intends to do.

Once again, proving that prayer is futile.

What are you accomplishing?

Imagine me telling my son the plan for his birthday.

Every little particular, I'm going to list it out.

Here's what time we're going to get up.

Here's where I've scheduled the party.

Here's what kind of cake you're going to get.

Here's the presents that you're going to receive.

Now, you can ask me for whatever you want for your birthday and I'll do it for you.

But what you ask for has to align with my plans or I can't help you.

What?

How confusing.

This is essentially what the Bible says and what your preachers are telling you.

But okay, Dad, I want a dinosaur birthday cake.

Good, that was what was in the plan, prayer granted.

Now thank me and tell everyone else what a good thing I did for you and how I answered your prayer.

Okay, Dad, I want the Spider-Man Lego set.

Ah, not on the list, denied.

Now thank me for my better plans for you because my unlimited knowledge knows exactly what's best for you and I've got a good plan for you.

Thank me for that and then tell everyone that I did answer your prayer.

It just wasn't exactly in the way you thought it would be.

But that is good.

To my mind, biblical prayer is absolutely that asinine, that ridiculous, that silly.

If we can change God's will, especially in things like intercessory prayer, that means we're also changing the will of another individual on this earth.

That means free will is out the window.

I know I use silly examples sometimes like praying for the football team to win, but let's just take that and run with it for a second.

If you pray and that team wins and they won because of your prayer, that means that they weren't going to win otherwise, which means that all the hard work of all of those players and all of the practice and all of the good coaching and every other causal event that has led up to what the outcome of that game would have been was for nothing.

You have interrupted their life, their free will to get an outcome that you can control via your ability to commune with God versus their ability to commune with God.

Now, I know that's a silly example, and for that reason, many of you won't take heat in it, but just extrapolate it to whatever you want.

Maybe the winning side of a war.

How many times have we heard that the US has been so victorious in war because we're a Christian country versus non-Christian countries?

I mean, this is the entire story of the Old Testament that the army with the correct God won the battles.

That's why having such a powerful God was so important.

America is a Christian nation.

We won our battles because of the prayers and belief of our people, the Christian people.

Think about what that actually implies for the deaths of those men, women, and children from the losing countries.

In what world did they have free will?

So if prayer works, it immediately eradicates free will, and if it doesn't, then we have a lie from God.

This, to me, is a real catch-22 for God, and quite simply, as a believer of over 30 years,

I ran out of excuses for God, and this is what I'll end with.

After 30 years of believing every literal chapter and verse, believing in His goodness, in His omniscience, in His sovereignty, in His plan, wanting to fulfill my destiny in God's will for His kingdom, not for my benefit, not for my gain, seeking out after Him, having daily prayer time, going to church, being a leader, studying the Bible, calling my faith my greatest asset, sharing the gospel, praying for others, giving my tithes, giving my offerings, and relying on God, not just as some supernatural supreme being, but as my personal Savior and the author of my life, and for about three years at the end of that,

I begged God to reveal Himself fully, to help me continue to believe, to answer prayers, to give me what so many people around me were getting all of the time, the reassurance, the miracles, the visions, the answers to prayer, the showing up, and I just didn't get it.

What is the Christian answer for that?

Besides pulling apart my motives and my heart and my sincerity, which you cannot know and do not have a right to claim against, let's just assume that it was as sincere as the other person next to me who received the answers, who God showed up for, who God increased their faith for, who God helped them to believe, to remain in the faith.

Why them and not me?

What can possibly be the explanation for that other than that there is no God?