For the week of November 22, 2025 / 2 Kislev 5786
Toledot
Torah: Bereshit/Genesis 25:19-28:9
Haftarah: 1 Samuel 20:18-42
Originally posted the week of November 22, 2014 / 29 Heshvan 5775 (updated)
And Isaac prayed to the LORD for his wife, because she was barren. And the LORD granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived. (Bereshit/Genesis 25:21)
Have you ever heard anyone say, “Prayer doesn’t change things; prayer changes you”? It sounds so wise and spiritual to shift people’s attention from a supposed utilitarian approach to prayer to an inner, personalized one. But is it true? Ask Isaac. Abraham’s son’s wife, Rebekah, was having trouble getting pregnant. So he prayed. I imagine it could have been Isaac who changed if the problem was him, not his wife. But regardless, they had an issue; Isaac asked God for help, and God granted his request. Not only did she get pregnant, but they had twins!
I don’t claim to understand prayer or how it works. But as far as the Bible is concerned, prayer indeed changes things. It doesn’t take expert analytical skills to determine this. A person or people find themselves in undesirable circumstances; God is petitioned for help; at times, he responds as requested. Problem solved. Prayer changes things.
I know it’s not the prayer itself that affects change. It’s God. Prayer is not a mechanism; it’s communication, communication with God, the Master of the Universe, who, out of love for his human creatures, makes himself available to us and actually responds to our requests. While it’s God who does the changing, his actions on our behalf in these cases are a result of our communicating with him.
I can’t say for sure, but I think pithy statements, such as “prayer doesn’t change things; prayer changes you,” exposes an ingrained cynicism. This obviously is not something that someone says who has experienced regular answers to prayer. It can only come from those who haven’t. While they don’t seem to be able to deny prayer as a legitimate, biblically based activity, their disappointment twists God’s revealed truth into a spirituality of their own making.
There may be other factors undermining their ability to take the Scriptures at face value. Philosophically, it is difficult to understand how God’s actions toward humans could be dependent on our requests. Doesn’t God do what God does regardless? So why pray? As I already mentioned, I don’t understand how prayer works; I just know it does as modeled by Isaac and others in the Bible. And by the way, how could prayer change us if it doesn’t change things, unless the change is only to do with the exercise of praying and nothing to do with God at all. If praying is not communicating with God, I don’t know what it is, but it’s certainly not prayer.
I do concede, however, that this statement is half true: prayer indeed changes us (again, it’s not the prayer doing the changing; it’s God). It’s essential, however, to understand how that works. This much I think I know: prayer as communication with God is similar to a child’s communication with a parent. When a child expresses a need, they invite interaction. A good, wise, and loving parent doesn’t respond with “Yeah, yeah, whatever you like,” or “Don’t bother me!” but instead engages the child by clarifying the request and granting it, but only if it is in the best interest of the child. This interactive process, initiated by the child but directed by the parent, should lead to some level of learning and growth for the child. It is in this sense that we could say that the child’s request changes him or her, but only in the sense that the parent influences that change.
But what kind of parent would be so focused on the maturity of their child that they would only use their requests as occasions for a lesson of some sort and never actually give them what they ask for? Yeshua the Messiah refers to the general generosity of parents when he says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). This doesn’t mean God automatically grants every request just because we ask. He is an all-loving, all-wise Father, who also knows when to say, “No.” But we won’t get an answer at all if we don’t ask.
Want to see some things change and be changed in the process? Pray.
Scriptures taken from the English Standard Version
