If god has a plan, then doesn't that make prayer worthless?

There are various ways that different Christian traditions handle this: I'm definately not a Calvanist. I think I currently exist in a state of curiosity between Arminianism and Open-theism. Let's say I'm a seeker. I do believe God answers prayer. But perhaps C.S. Lewis was right when he said "Prayer doesn't change God, it changes me."

I wasn't attempting to change the logic of your post, merely to point out that there is great disagreement among the Christian community as to which one is right. My personal opinion lies more under option three. Except with God being all-powerful and infallible, but willingly limiting his knowledge to experience time as we experience it.I am beginning to see that only under a slightly changed version of #3 can God have any meaningful interaction with humanity. If he pre-destines all of time, or even if he merely sees time from beginning to end, all interaction with humanity is from a far removed stand-point and I personally believe that God does answer prayer, and that his interaction with humanity is meaningful. I also believe that enough of the Bible presents a tension between God's love and God's judgement to sustain such a belief. Look at Judges 10, There is a tension there between God's anger at being forsaken by his people again, and his compassion as he sees them hurt. This doesn't indicate someone who has seen it beginning to end. It indicates that he is truly hurt from their idolatry.I'm not sure I know enough about all the theological outfall to say that I'm an open-theist though.

I think it was the Moravians who kept to the slogan, "In essentials, unity, in non-essentials, diversity, in all things, charity."If we can agree on what the essentials are, then diversity in the non-essentials is not a big deal. I don't believe someone is going to hell because they believe that God responds differently to prayer than I think he does.The problem (one of them) with Christianity today is that it's become more and more about cognitive consent to a creed or other statement of belief than it has about personal relationship which is the calling that scripture is saturated with. But don't ask me, I'm from a holiness strand of the church. Be Christians, not just be like the world and say you "believe" in God. I think it's James (could be wrong, too short on time to look) that says "You believe in one God, good, even the demons believe that and shudder."It really doesn't matter how/why you believe God responds to prayer. In the long run, he'll respond/not respond not based on your beliefs but on his character.I'll get off my soapbox now.....