The experience of the race is clear that some things God never can do until he finds a man who prays. Indeed, Meister Eckhart, the mystic, puts the truth with extreme boldness: “God can as little do without us, as we without him.” If at first this seems a wild statement, we may well consider in how many ways God’s will depends on man’s cooperation. God himself cannot do some things unless men think. He never blazons his truth on the sky that men may find it without seeking. Only when men gird the loins of their minds and undiscourageably give themselves to intellectual toil, will God reveal to them the truth, even about the physical world. And God himself cannot do some things unless men work. Will a man say that when God wants bridges and tunnels, wants the lightnings harnessed and cathedrals built, he will do the work himself? That is an absurd and idle fatalism. God stores the hills with marble, but he never built a Parthenon; he fills the mountains with ore, but he never made a needle or a locomotive. Only when men work can some things be done. Recall the words of Stradivarius, maker of violins, as George Eliot interprets him:

When any master holds ‘twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, he will be glad that Stradivari lived, made violins, and made them of the best… For while God gives them skill I give them instruments to play upon, God choosing me to help him…. If my hand slacked I should rob Godsince he is fullest goodleaving a blank instead of violins…. he could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins without Antonio.

Now if God has left some things contingent on man’s thinking and working why may he not have left some things contingent on man’s praying? The testimony of the great souls is a clear affirmative to this: some things never without thinking; some things never without working; some things never without praying! Prayer is one of the three forms of man’s cooperation with God.

—Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer

We need to be careful not to take Fosdick’s argument too far, but his point remains valid nevertheless. For whatever reason, God has ordained that human be active stewards of his creation as well as in our prayer life. What a wondrous and awesome privilege and opportunity!