Prayer is integral to the Christian life but can sometimes leave us with troubling questions and struggles. In his book Why We Pray: Understanding Prayer in the Context of Cosmic Conflict, author John Peckham presents questions regarding God and prayer that many Christians have wrestled with. “Why does God sometimes seem to be hidden or silent in the midst of storms in our lives?” “Where is God when it seems our prayers are unanswered?” “If God is entirely good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how could offering petitionary prayers make any difference?” “Would not God act in the most preferable way, regardless of whether anyone asks Him to do so?”
Through the pages of his book, Peckham unpacks how understanding prayer within the overarching story of a “cosmic conflict” found in Scripture between God’s kingdom and the kingdom of darkness helps provide answers to these troubling questions. The thought-provoking perspective of this book gives hope and purpose for how we are to make sense of things when it seems God is absent in meeting needs or preventing great evils.
The author first looks at God’s nature and how He interacts with the world. Peckham lays out examples from Scripture that portray a God who hears and responds to prayer, invites dialogue, desires a genuine back-and-forth relationship, and “welcomes and even elicits intercession”—a God who always acts based on His character of love and justice, always keeps His promises, and is perfectly good and loving, while being all-knowing, wise, and all-powerful.
Peckham then turns to the Lord’s Prayer, probing how Jesus’ teaching sheds light on prayer in the cosmic conflict framework. He highlights ideas and examples that expand this framework: God’s reputation and character that have been slandered; the tension regarding God’s kingdom already here, yet not fully come; God’s commitment to grant human free will and the impact it has on Him; God’s “ideal will” versus His “remedial will”; and the seeming conundrum of how prayer somehow influences an all-loving God to provide daily needs that He would not have provided if not asked.
The author further fleshes out his growing framework with perhaps the most thought-
provoking chapter of the book, describing what he calls “rules of engagement.” Peckham says, “The devil could never oppose the all-powerful God in terms of sheer power. The devil, then, must have been granted some significant power and jurisdiction over this world within some specified limits or rules of engagement, which (given that God has agreed to them) morally limit God’s action” (34).
Peckham gives striking examples from Scripture of rules of engagement. He masterfully unfolds a complex array of intersecting factors at play behind the scenes that we often are not aware of, given our very limited perspective. He provides compelling reasoning demonstrating how these complex factors at times affect God’s actions and His responses to our prayers.
In the last chapters of Why We Pray, the author powerfully revisits God’s design for prayer and why it is needed in the context of the rules of engagement and a complex array of intersecting factors in the cosmic conflict. Peckham gives valuable insights to consider within this framework when our prayers seem unanswered or when God seems hidden.
Whether thinking about prayer within the context of a cosmic conflict is a new idea for the reader or an already familiar one, Why We Pray remains a valuable read. It presents a clear and tangible picture of prayer in the cosmic conflict. It invites the reader to journey through compelling evidence in Scripture, providing insights that help answer questions many have wrestled with. It leaves us looking at God through new windows of understanding that strengthen our trust in Him. And it inspires us to pray.
