In December 2020, I had a pointed post on how a religion teacher at BYU was teaching a false truth that God doesn’t change in a relationship with us. It related to his interpretation of the Bible Dictionary’s definition of prayer.

Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other

In that post, I said

I agree that we do not believe in a relative God that bows to our every wish as if we were in complete control. However, I disagree with his depiction of God as the unmoved mover and his description that any view other than the unmoved mover is ‘really wrong’. He seems to be implying that we should accept a God that never changes and expects us to get cosmically in line with His unbending will. I see God as the Most Moved Mover. As we pray, he is willing to move as long as the movement works towards His will of eternal life together.

I recently listened to Elder Bednar’s 2008 talk titled Ask in Faith. It is an engaging message. He has a much more nuanced message than the BYU teacher above, but much of the text below could sound the same. I want to share it with you to discuss LDS beliefs on prayer and partnership with God. This topic is essential in understanding how God’s and his children’s agency interact.

I built the following visual to help us compare Elder Bednar’s message with Tyler’s message. In this graphic, I created two axes, Deference (y-axis) and Initiative (x-axis), to help us see how we work in partnership with another’s will.¹ In this specific example, we interact with God, and the labels in each quadrant describe the type of God and truth we perceive based on how much deference we give to God and how much we dictate our own path (initiative). The optimal location is the upper right quadrant, where our will is entirely in use while we are fully committed to partnership with God and His will. This quadrant is titled after my favorite name for God and the title of this blog. The other three quadrants are not where we want to reside. I believe this chart will help us see how the wording from each of the two messages on prayer pushes us into different quadrants.

Tyler Griffin Unmoved Mover and Prayer

I don’t want to spend too much time on Tyler’s message as you can read an entire post from me on the topic. Here is one quote from Tyler’s message that doesn’t sit well with me.

The thing that’s really wrong with [percieving prayer as a way to get God to do my bidding] is we have in the attitude of prayer, the child, changing the will of the parent. In this case, a heavenly parent who knows everything.

Brothers and sisters, prayer is not for us to teach God anything he doesn’t already know. Prayer is not an opportunity for me to kneel down and enlighten God on what happened in my day, or what I’m thankful for, or what I need help with. God knows all of those things infinitely better than I know them about myself. So when he commands us to pray. It’s not so that we can teach him anything. It’s so that we can learn from him. We can learn about him. And we can learn about ourselves, and we can learn about others.

The above quote and the finger visuals he provides strongly imply that God doesn’t change – that we must do all the changing. While I appreciate that Tyler is pushing us from a low deference high initiative spot (the bottom right of the visual), I think he is incorrectly moving us to the top left, not the top right.

Elder Bednar on Prayer and God

Elder Bednar doesn’t use any gestures or visuals during his conference talk. However, he shares a few stories to get his paradigm across. They are worth reviewing. After sharing his third example, he gets into the details of correspondence with God and how prayer works relative to agency (full quote).

Discerning and accepting the will of God in our lives are fundamental elements of asking in faith in meaningful prayer. However, simply saying the words “Thy will be done” is not enough. Each of us needs God’s help in surrendering our will to Him.

“Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other” (Bible Dictionary, “Prayer,” 752–53). Humble, earnest, and persistent prayer enables us to recognize and align ourselves with the will of our Heavenly Father. And in this the Savior provided the perfect example as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. … And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly” (Luke 22:42, 44).

The object of our prayers should not be to present a wish list or a series of requests but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is eager to bestow, according to His will and timing. Every sincere prayer is heard and answered by our Heavenly Father, but the answers we receive may not be what we expect or come to us when we want or in the way we anticipate.

Prayer is a privilege and the soul’s sincere desire. We can move beyond routine and “checklist” prayers and engage in meaningful prayer as we appropriately ask in faith and act, as we patiently persevere through the trial of our faith, and as we humbly acknowledge and accept “not my will, but Thine, be done.”

Now, I want to pull apart his quote to show how his message pushes us into the upper right quadrant, not the upper left like Tyler’s message. The bulleted points have the quadrant or direction on the chart mapped to his wording from above (see the chart below for a visual depiction).

• We are not to move from the bottom right to the top left: ‘Simply saying the words “Thy will be done” is not enough. Each of us needs God’s help in surrendering our will to Him.’
• We have to move up on the deference chart without moving to the left. ‘Humble, earnest, and persistent prayer enables us to recognize and align ourselves with the will of our Heavenly Father.’
• The bottom right quadrant is not a good place to reside. ‘The object of our prayers should not be to present a wish list or a series of requests but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is eager to bestow, according to His will and timing.’
• Really don’t live in the bottom right quadrant. ‘Every sincere prayer is heard and answered by our Heavenly Father, but the answers we receive may not be what we expect or come to us when we want or in the way we anticipate.’
• The goal is the partnership of the top right quadrant. ‘We can move beyond routine and “checklist” prayers and engage in meaningful prayer as we appropriately ask in faith and act, as we patiently persevere through the trial of our faith, and as we humbly acknowledge and accept “not my will, but Thine, be done.”’

Conclusion

When I first read Elder Bednar’s words, I worried he was saying the same thing as Tyler Griffin. After carefully working out the above diagrams, I don’t think Elder Bednar is saying the same thing. Maybe Tyler doesn’t mean what I heard as well. Along with the Bible Dictionary, they both are concerned about those of use that live in the bottom right quadrant.

Understanding correspondence in prayer is so important. I had so much cognitive dissonance about my perceptions of prayer in our church until a few years before I started this blog. I saw it as Tyler saw it, and I wasn’t finding any groove with that type of prayer. When I came to see God as the Most Moved Mover, I found the purpose and potential of prayer. I am not sure my petitionary prayers have had any higher success rate, but I feel more in harmony with God and His will.

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