Well, hello, friends, and welcome back to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast where we share

biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaylie Olson, and I'm in the room

with some of my very favorite people, our Proverbs 31 Ministries President, Lisa Tercurst,

and our in-house resident theologian Joel Motemalite. Welcome back, my friends.

Thank you. This is a very important topic today. I agree. And the reason that we're here today

is because we're talking about the topic does prayer change God's mind, which I think is something

that every believer asks, but if you're like me, you ask the question, but you're like, how do I

find the answer? I don't know. Are there things that God has already made a bad or what, where is

there room for me to ask for something to change? And so I'm excited to hear from you guys on this

topic. And to kick us off, I would love to know, like, why did you start studying this and like,

why tackle this topic right now? Well, I think that there are a lot of questions around this topic,

because, you know, and I understand it, people are praying and asking God to do something in their

life, and it feels very urgent. It feels like the need is very immediate, and it can feel almost like

if God answers our prayer, then it's a validation that He heard us and that He cares about us.

And I think we all know God does hear us, God does care about us, but when we pray about something,

we see God move in a way that we know it had to be God. It validates something deep within us

around, does God hear me and does God love me. But I want us to kind of switch this up just a

little bit in our thinking, because when we pray and in the process of praying, we establish an

outcome that we very much are expecting God to do, we can become very attached to outcomes of our

own making. Prayer really should be the very thing that releases us from carrying the weight of

outcomes. No human should have to carry the weight of being their own God, figuring all of this out,

saying if things turn out this way, then this is evidence of God's goodness. But so many of us work

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