I have a tough time believing that prayer works. Before you brand me a heathen, hear me out. At a heart level, I know prayer works. I've seen it work. The logical party of me just doesn't get it. There's a part of me that wonders if I can really impact the infinite God of the universe. I always wonder if God's just doing what he was going to do anyways. Would everything happen exactly as it does regardless of whether I pray or not? This makes prayer tough for me.

I was reading the book The Divine Conspiracy this morning about prayer, which goes through prayer from every angle imaginable. The book gave some examples of how God changed his mind in examples with Hezekiah and Moses. Ok. The idea was that God is a God that can be prevailed upon by those who faithfully stand before him. Ok. Heard that before. And then I started thinking about my three year old Emily. Emily can ask me for something, even if my first inkling is to say no or do it a different way, I'm amazed at how often I end up saying yes. It's not because she presents me with the most logical or convincing argument, not because she phrases it a certain way. It's because I love her. Sometimes, I change my mind, just because I love her. I'm not saying I let her play with knives (most of the time) or let her do really short-sited stuff, but a lot of times when I do what she asks, it's simply out of love. I guess this is the best example that my brain can fathom as to why God answers my prayers, when I know he's infinite, all-knowing and way more logical and understanding of what's going on than I am. Not a deep philisophic reason, but I think I finally get it.