Answering Questions #2

Sitting in front of a warm fire on Christmas, I am flipping through some fantastic questions that our church has given the pastors to answer. The one that has caught my eye is this one because I will be preaching the answer from Luke 18 in just a few weeks. Here is the question: If God has a plan & will (He is sovereign), why do we ask God to heal (etc.) if He is going to do what He wants anyway?
I hear this person asking if everything is pre-ordained or if we can sway God to intervene by praying. Let me answer this with scripture; Jesus speaks:
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Give me justice against my adversary.' For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'" And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" Luke 18:1-8 ESV
Previously in the Bible, persistent prayer by the saints had changed God's mind, so my advice to the current saints is to petition God with great boldness and persistence about what you need. Behind the question, I hear some possible frustration that this person maybe prayed for a loved one's healing and God did not act. Maybe He did act -- He asks us to trust Him that He knows what is best. That can really test and grow our faith.

What God wants is our company, our attention. I think he loves spending time with us. We must spend time in earnest prayer. God is faithful; it is His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. His giving of the Kingdom may just not always look like we want it.